O  4  I  /;> 


YIYISECTION: 


IS  IT  SCIENTIFICALLY  USEFUL  OR  MORALLY  JUSTIFIABLE? 


A  PRIZE  ESSAY 


ADDRESSED  SPECIALLY  TO  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION. 


JAMES  MACAULAY,  A.M.,  M.D., 

Fellow   of  the   Royal  College   op  Surgeons,   of  Edinburgh. 


REPRINTED    FROM    THE   LONDON   EDITION. 


Ex  iis  quce  violentift  quaeruntur,  alia  non  possunt  oniuino  cognosci,  alia  possunt  etiam  sine  scelere 

—  C'ehus 


PHILADELPHIA : 
THE   AMERICAN    ANTI-VIVISECTION   SOCIETY, 

No.  4002-Waijtut  Stubes.   \l%.  &  I]  fJ 
1884. 


T> 


VIVISECTION: 


IS  IT  SCIENTIFICALLY  USEFUL  OR  MORALLY  JUSTIFIABLE? 


AN  ESSAY 


ADDRESSED  SPECIALLY  TO  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION. 


JAMES  MACAULAY,  A.M.,  M.D., 

Fellow   of   the   Royal   College   of   Surcf.ons,    of   Edinburgh. 


REPRINTED    FROM    THE    LONDON    EDITION. 


Ex  iis  quoe  violetitia  quieruntur,  alia  non  possunt  omnino  cognosci,  alia  possunt  etiam  sine  scelere 

—  C'elsus 


PHILADELPHIA: 
THE  AMERICAN  ANTI-VIVISECTION  SOCIETY, 

No.  1002  Walnut  Street. 
1884. 


PREFACE. 


The  following  Essay  was  written  in  response  .to  an  offer  of 
Two  Hundred  Guineas  for  the  best  Essay  on  "Painful  Experiments 
on  Living  Animals,  Scientifically  and  Ethically  considered." 

The  Essays  given  in  were  adjudicated  upon  by  seven  eminent 
gentlemen,  whose  names  will  be  found  below,  and  who  kindly  con- 
sented to  act  as  Judges.  They  examined  the  Essays  submitted  to 
them  with  scrupulous  care,  and  the  result  was,  that  each  of  three 
Essays  had  two  Judges  in  its  favor  as  the  best.  In  these  circum- 
stances, the  seventh  Judge  did  not  feel  warranted  to  decide  the 
question,  and  thought  it  better,  with  the  consent  of  all  parties,  to 
divide  the  award  among  the  three  authors,  and  publish  their 
Essays. 

NAMES  OF  THE  JUDGES. 

W.  A.  F.  BROWNE,  Esq.,  LL.D  ,  F.R.C.S.E.,  formerly  Medical  Commis- 
sioner in  Lunacy  for  Scotland,  Crindau,  Dumfries. 

ARTHUR  DE  NOE  WALKER,  Esq.,  M.D.,  M.R.C.S.  Eng.  ;  L.A.H. 
Member  of  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great  Britain,  10  Ovington  Gardens, 
London. 

JAMES  COWIE,  Esq.,  M.R.C.V.S.,  late  Vice-President,  Member  of  Council 
and  of  the  Board  of  Examiners  of  the  Royal  Veterinary  College  of 
Surgeons,  London — Sundridge  Hall,  Bromley,  Kent. 

JOSEPH  JOHNSTON,  Esq.,  M.D.,  Surgeon- Major,  Army  Medical  Department, 
3  Lome  Terrace,  Dublin. 

JAMES  GILCHRIST,  Esq,  M:D.,  Member  Botanical  Society,  Edinburgh; 
Medical  Superintendent  of  Crichton  Royal  Institution,  Dumfries. 

DAVID  JOHNSTON,  Esq.,  M.A.,  M.D.,  L.R.C.S.  Edinburgh— Kair  House, 
Fordoun,  Kincardineshire. 

JOHN  H.  BRIDGES,  Esq.,  M.B.,  F.R.C.P.  London;  late  Fellow  of  Oriel 
College,  Oxford ;  Medical'  Inspector  Local  Government  Board,  White- 
hall, London. 

2 


VIVISECTION. 


A  great  change  of  opinion  appears  to  have  taken  place  among 
the  medical  profession  in  England  on  the  subject  of  Vivisection. 
In  the  Medico- Chirurg 'iced  Review  for  1842,  Mr.  Shaw,  now  (1880) 
the  veteran  Consulting  Surgeon  to  the  Middlesex  Hospital,  in 
giving  a  summary  of  his  kinsman's,  Sir  Charles  Bell's,  researches, 
thus  expressed  himself: — "The  profession  must  be  well. persuaded 
by  this  time  what  a  difficult  task  it  is  to  obtain  any  uniform  results 
by  having  recourse  to  experiments  on  living  animals.  And  it  is 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that,  if  physiologists  had  waited  patiently 
till  cases  occurred  in  practice,  such  as  have  actually  been  met  with 
in  very  numerous  instances,  when  the  pathological  phenomena  con- 
firmed the  views  deduced  from  anatomy,  our  convictions  would  bo 
as  strong  as  after  all  the  multiplied  experiments  which  have  been 
performed." 

The  words  of  Sir  Charles  Bell  himself  are  still  more  emphatic: — 
"  In  a  foreign  review  of  my  former  papers,"  he  says,  "  the  results 
have  been  considered  as  in  favor  of  experimenting  on  living  ani- 
mals. They  are,  on  the  contrary,  deductions  from  anatomy  ;  and 
I  have  had  recourse  to  experiments,  not  to  form  my  opinions,  but 
to  impress  them  upon  others.  It  must  be  my  apology  that  my 
utmost  powers  of  persuasion  were  lost  while  I  urged  my  statements 
on  the  ground  of  anatomy  alone."  And  again,  "  Experiments  have 
never  been  the  means  of  discovery,  and  a  survey  of  what  has  been 
attempted  of  late  years  will  prove  that  the  opening  of  living  animals 
has  done  more  to  perpetuate  error  than  to  enforce  the  just  views 
taken  from  anatomy  and  the  natural  sciences." — (Bell  on  the  Nerv- 
ous System.) 

I  have  before  me  a  printed  circular,  signed  by  thirty-eight 
medical  men  resident  at  Bath,  which  shows  what  was  the  general 
feeling  in  the  profession  on  this  subject,  at  a  somewhat  earlier 
period.  It  is  dated  Bath,  February  27, 1825  : — "  We,  whose  names 
are  under- written,  medical  persons,  chiefly  practitioners,  resident  at 
Bath,  do  hereby  engage  and  declare  that  we  will,  as  far  as   in   us 

3 


4  VIVISECTION. 

lies,  prevent  and  discourage  by  our  example,  influence,  and  dis- 
suasion, those  painful  and  cruel  anatomical  experiments  upon  living 
animals,  which  to  the  disgrace  of  science,  in  our  opinion,  are  made, 
sometimes  without  necessity  or  utility,  and  frequently  without  any 
adequate  end,  under  the  plea  of  promoting  medical  knowledge. 
.  .  .  We  do  thus  protest  against  and  reprobate  such  conduct, 
esteeming  it  wholly  unwarrantable  and  discreditable  to  our 
profession." 

In  the  journal  already  quoted — the  Medico-Chirurgieal  Review 
(vol.  xxxvi),  new  series — at  that  time  the  leading  organ  of  the  pro- 
fession, the  editors,  after  giving  some  account  of  M.  Longet's 
experiments,  says  : — "  We  cannot  conceal  our  abhorrent  dislike  of 
what  the  French  call  Vivisection,  in  which  unoffending  brutes  are 
made  the  victims  of  the  most  shocking  sufferings,  all  with  the  view 
of  advancing  science !  "  More  is  said,  in  a  tone  of  earnest  indigna- 
tion, with  which  the  majority  of  readers  in  those  days,  no  doubt, 
heartily  sympathized. 

Even  so  recently  as  1866,  when  prize  essays  on  Vivisection  were 
published  by  the  "  Royal  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Animals,"  the  author  of  one  of  the  essays,  Dr.  Markham,  Physician 
to  St.  Mary's  Hospital,  London,  while  not  denying  the  abstract 
right  to  make  experiments,  nor  their  occasional  utility,  observes  : — 
"  I  need  hardly  say  that  courses  of  experimental  physiology  are  no- 
where given  in  this  country;  and  that  my  remarks,  consequently, 
apply  only  to  those  schools  in  France,  and  elsewhere,  where  such 
demonstrations  are  delivered." 

In  the  few  years  that  have  since  passed,  the  practice  of  vivisec- 
tion has  not  only  greatly  increased  in  this  country,  but  seems  now 
to  be  regarded  with  altered  feelings  by  a  large  part  of  the  medical 
profession.  There  were  always  some  physiologists  and  surgeons 
who  thought  it  right  to  use  this  method  of  investigation ;  but  their 
researches  were  quietly  conducted,  and  not  with  ostentatious  pub- 
licity, as  in  Paris  and  other  Continental  cities.  The  whole  tone  of 
English  professional  opinion  was  against  such  experiments.  English 
medical  students  would  have  revolted  against  such  exhibitions 
as  were  customary  in  foreign  schools.  But  a  change  has  been 
gradually  coming  over  the  spirit  of  the  profession.  Courses  of 
'•'  demonstrations  in  animal  physiology  "  are  given  in  various  med- 


IS   IT   USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  5 

ical  schools.  "Handbooks"  are  published  for  the  use  of  pupils 
in  "  physiological  laboratories."  The  extent  to  which  this  mode  of 
investigation,  so  recently  introduced,  is  carried  on  will  never  be 
fully  known;  but  it  is  already  so  far  a  department  of  study  and 
education  that  physiological  laboratories,  like  anatomical  class- 
rooms, are  under  legal  regulation  and  official  inspection. 

The  tone  of  the  medical  press,  which  may  be  supposed  to  repre- 
sent professional  opinion,  is  also  very  different  from  what  it  used  to 
be.  To  give  but  one  instance — an  article  in  the  British  and 
Foreign  Medico- Chirurgical  Review,  for  April,  1875,  a  journal 
holding  a  position  analogous  to  that  of  the  old  Medico- Chirurgical, 
not  only  advocates  the  free  practice  of  vivisection,  but  deals  with 
objections  to  it  as  arising  only  from  ignorance  or  fanaticism.  The 
tone  of  the  press  is  communicated  to  the  profession.  It  may  be 
that,  at  Bath,  and  at  other  centres  of  the  Provincial  Medical  Asso- 
ciation, there  may  be  forty  men  ready  to  sign  a  protest  as  clear  and 
firm  as  that  which  we  have  quoted.  But  the  published  proceedings 
of  such  bodies  do  not  favor  this  hope.  At  the  annual  meeting  of 
the  British  Medical  Association,  held  at  Edinburgh,  in  1875,  under 
the  presidency  of  Sir  Robert  Christison,  an  address  was  delivered 
by  Professor  Rutherford,  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  who  has 
attained  eminence  as  an  experimenter  on  living  animals.  "  In 
recent  years,"  said  Professor  Rutherford,  "  the  teaching  of  physi- 
ology has  made  a  great  stride  in  this  country.  Laboratories,  duly 
appointed,  have  been  and  are  being  organized.  The  method  of 
physiological  instruction  has,  in  most  instances,  risen  from  the  mere 
prelection  illustrated  by  the  diagram,  to  the  experimental  illustra- 
tion of  the  subject.  I  cannot  suppose  that  any  member  of  this  Asso- 
ciation entertains  the  idea  that  experiments  on  the  lower  animals 
are  not  justifiable  for  the  discovery  of  new  truth  ;  but  I  am  aware 
that  there  are  some  who  entertain  the  idea  that  vivisection  is  not 
necessary  when  it  has  for  its  object  the  mere  demonstration  of  edu- 
cational principles  and  facts  already  known.  Those  who  hold  this 
doctrine  appear  to  me  to  forget  that  physiology  is  an  experimental 
science,  and  that  no  right  conception  of  the  subject  can  be  obtained 
unless  the  students  be  shown  the  experiments  that  are  necessary  for 
the  demonstration  of  certain  facts." 

Professor  Rutherford  concluded  his  address  by  describing  numer- 
ous experiments  which  he   had  made  as  to  the   effects  of  various 


6  VIVISECTION. 

medicines  on  the  secretion  of  bile  in  the  healthy  dog.  His  descrip- 
tion of  the  experiments  was  illustrated  by  diagrams,  which  appeared 
to  convey  to  the  meeting  a  sufficiently  clear  notion  of  his  researches, 
and  certainly  in  a  way  less  disagreeable  than  witnessing  the  experi- 
ments themselves.  It  was  a  practical  refutation  of  his  own  asser- 
tion that  seeing  the  operations  was  essential  to  a  right  understanding 
of  them.  To  these  experiments  I  shall  afterwards  have  to  refer, 
but  meanwhile  have  quoted  a  brief  portion  of  the  address  for  the 
sake  of  making  a  few  comments. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Professor  asserts  that  "  physiology  is  an 
experimental  science,"  and  that,  therefore,  experiments  on  living 
animals  must  be  made  and  must  be  exhibited.  The  fallacy  in  this 
statement  is,  that  experimental  is  an  epithet  here  used  in  a  wrong 
sense.  "Experimental  science"  is  a  synonym  for  "inductive 
science,"  or  science  based  on  the  observation  of  facts.  It  is  a 
petitio  principii  to  assume  that  vivisection  is  necessary  to  constitute, 
physiology  one  of  the  experimental  or  inductive  sciences. 

But  passing  from  this,  can  it  be  said  with  truth  that  the  Insti- 
tutes of  Medicine,  or  Physiology,  cannot  be  intelligently  taught 
without  the  exhibition  of  experiments  on  living  animals  ?  Professor 
W.  P.  Alison,  the  distinguished  predecessor  of  Dr.  Rutherford, 
never  made  such  demonstrations,  and  he  was  a  man  as  distinguished 
as  a  physician  as  he  was  successful  as  a  teacher. 

Another  eminent  teacher  in  the  Edinburgh  Medical  School,  Dr. 
John  Fletcher,  in  the  introductory  lecture  to  his  course  on  physi- 
ology and  on  medical  jurisprudence,  gave  a  testimony  in  direct  op- 
position to  that  of  Dr.  Rutherford.  u  None  of  the  functions  of 
animals  need  be  seen  in  action,  in  order  to  be  perfectly  well  under- 
stood:  they  may  be  abundantly  well  fancied  from  preparations  and 
representations  of  the  organs  engaged  in  performing  them — and 
none,  certainly,  will  be  exhibited  in  action  in   the  present  lectures. 

"During  many  years'  experience  in  lecturing  on  this  subject, and 
in  delivering  courses  of  more  than  tenor  twelve  times  the  duration 
proposed  at  present,  I  have  never  yet  found  it  necessary,  in  a  single 
instance,  to  expose  a  suffering  animal,  even  to  students  of  medicine 
(who  are  necessarily,  in  some  degree,  familiarized  with  sights  of 
horror),  for  the  purpose  of  elucidating  any  point  of  physiology,  and 
I  certainly  shall  not  begin  now;  nor  can  I  refrain  from  stating  my 
belief,  that  experiments  on  living  animals  are  much  less  necessary, 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  7 

even  to  the  advancement  of  this  science,  than  has  been  sometimes 
imagined.  lam  perfectly  aware  how  much  this  plan  of  "  interro- 
gating Nature "  has  done,  in  modern  times,  for  every  branch  of 
physical  science;  but  I  am  equally  persuaded  that  these  advantages 
have  been,  in  general,  overrated — at  any  rate  that  students,  in  this 
respect,  generally  begin  at  the  wrong  end,  and  are  often  engaged  in 
experimenting  on  animals,  in  hope  of  rinding  out  something  or 
other  on  which  to  found  some  new  and  surprising  doctrine,  while 
they  take  no  manner  of  notice  of  the  great  number  of  things  con- 
tinually going  on  in  their  own  bodies,  of  the  rationale  of  which 
they  are  ignorant. 

"  It  was  a  precept  which  I  learned  from  my  first  teacher  in 
medicine,  the  late  venerable  Abernethy,  constantly  to  remember 
that  I  carried  always  about  with  me  the  best  subject  for  observation 
and  experiment — one  the  most  easily  to  be  consulted,  since  it  was 
quite  in  my  power,  and  one  the  phenomena  of  which  should  be  the 
most  interesting  to  me,  since  it  was  with  similar  beings  alone  that 
I  should  in  future  have  any  immediate  concern;  and  this  precept  I 
have  never  lost  sight  of.  We  ought  never  to  forget  that  the  best 
subject  for  analysis  is  ourselves,  and  the  most  useful  contemplation 
that  which  relates  to  the  most  common  processes;  and  that,  till  wc 
understand  all  which  can  be  readily  understood,  with  a  little  reflec- 
tion, about  ourselves,  and  know  the  rational ia  of  all  familiar 
phenomena,  it  is  preposterous  to  pore  over  the  warm  and  quivering 
limbs  of  other  animals,  in  search  of  things  recondite  and  compara- 
tively useless."     (Introductory  Lecture.) 

This  testimony  of  an  experienced  and  successful  teacher  of 
physiology  disposes  of  the  alleged  necessity  for  demonstrations  on 
living  animals,  for  purposes  of  explaining  the  facts  and  principles 
of  the  science.  On  the  same  point  Professor  Owen  has  recorded 
his  opinion  in  these  emphatic  words: — UT  reprobate  the  perform- 
ance of  experiments  on  living  animals  to  show  to  students  what 
such  experiments  have  taught  the  master;  whilst  the  arguments 
for  learning  to  experiment,  by  repeating  experiments  on  living 
animals,  are  as  futile  as  those  for  so  learning  to  operate  chirurgi- 
cally."  Professor  Owen  thus  expressed  his  opinion  in  explaining 
his  award  in  the  competition  for  the  prize  essay  in  1866. 

I  have  also  an  equally  clear  statement  of  opinion  iu  a  letter  from 
my  old  teacher,  Sir  Robert  Christison.     His  words  are  these: — "  I 


8  VIVISECTION. 

object  to  all  public  demonstrations  by  experiment  on  living  animals, 
and  have  always  done  so."  Sir  Robert  did  not  utter  a  similar 
protest  before  the  British  Medical  Association,  though  he  might 
have  taken  the  opportunity.  But  there  was  a  good  deal  of  irritation 
at  the  time,  in  prospect  of  legislative  interference  ;  and  the  profession 
was  so  far  put  in  a  defensive  attitude,  on  account  of  the  agitation 
against  vivisection.  The  consequence  was,  that  Professor  Ruther- 
ford's address  was  received  with  apparently  the  unanimous  approval 
of  those  present,  and  the  report  of  the  meeting  contains  no  reference 
to  any  protest  having  been  made. 

It  becomes  an  important  and  fitting  matter  for  inquiry  how  this 
undoubted  change  in  the  opinion  of  the  profession  on  the  subject 
of  vivisection  has  been  brought  about.  How  is  it  that  so  many  are 
now  advocating  this  new  method  of  research,  instead  of  keeping  in 
the  old  and  safe  paths  of  observation  ? 

The  change  is  certainly  not  due  to  any  notable  discoveries  made 
in  recent  years  by  vivisection,  nor  any  improvements  in  medical 
practice  resulting  therefrom.  Still,  it  is  interesting  to  inquire 
why  the  strong  feeling  against  experimenting  on  living  animals, 
which  once  honorably  marked  the  profession  in  England,  has 
been  weakened  ;  and  why  our  schools  of  physiology  are  assuming 
greater  resemblance  to  the  once  much-censured  schools  of  the 
Continent. 

In  attempting  an  explanation,  I  think  that  several  things  must 
be  taken  into  account.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  natural  and 
laudable  desire  for  the  advancement  both  of  medical  knowledge  and 
practice.  The  path  of  progress  by  clinical  and  pathological  research, 
though  safe  and  sure,  involves  careful  and  patient  research,  as  all 
inductive  science  requires.  The  numerous  and  marvelous  strides 
made  in  other  departments  of  practical  science  during  the  last  half 
century  throw  into  marked  contrast  the  comparatively  slow  progress 
of  medicine.  To  use  the  words  of  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson  : — "  Ever 
and  anon  we  hear  it  doubted,  by  men  both  without  and  within  the 
profession,  whether  medicine  has  made  any  marked  progress  at  all 
during  the  period  that  I  speak  of.  Most  of  us  have  heard  it  broadly 
insinuated  that  while  other  departments  of  science  and  art  have, 
during  the  last  fifty  or  sixty  years,  been  marching  forwards  at  a 
pace  unprecedented  in  their  history,  the  art  of  healing  has  remained 
comparatively  stationary." 


IS   IT    USEFUL   OB   JUSTIFIABLE?  9 

To  Sir  James  Simpson's  Address  "Op  the  Modern  Advancement 
of  Physic,"  delivered  from  the  Presidential  chair  of  the  Edinburgh 
Medico-Chirnrgical  Society,  I  shall  refer  presently.  These  sentences 
quoted  from  it  express  well  the  too  prevalent  feeling  as  to  the 
comparatively  slow  progress  of  medicine.  It  is  natural  that  both 
physiologists  and  practitioners,  chafing  under  this  feeling,  hail  any 
prospect  of  accelerated  progress,  and  lend  a  ready  ear  to  the  asser- 
tions of  those  who  proclaim  that  by  vivisection  they  have  found  a  . 
shorter  road  to  knowledge. 

Another  influence  is  to  be  taken  into  account  in  explaining  the 
present  attitude  of  the  profession.  The  example  of  foreign  schools 
in  their  curricula  of  study  has  been  followed  of  late  years  more 
than  it  used  to  be  in  this  country.  "  Demonstrations"  in  animal 
physiology  have  been  introduced  in  various  medical  schools. 
"  Physiological  laboratories,"  and  other  institutions  for  experimental 
research,  have  been  established  and  endowed.  English  as  well  as 
foreign  pupils  of  Continental  laboratories  are  engaged  in  giving 
practical  instruction  to  students.  Some  of  these  professors  and 
demonstrators  are  Fellows  of  our  own  Colleges  of  Physicians  and 
Surgeons,  and  members  of  the  Senates  of  our  Universities.  These 
are  men  of  very  different  habits  and  character  from  some  of  the 
Continental  experimenters,  whose  proceedings  formerly  caused 
honest  indignation,  but  whose  methods  of  research  they  are  intro- 
ducing. Through  association  and  fellowship  with  them,  there  has 
arisen  a  strong  esprit  de  corps  in  the  profession,  leading  many  to 
defend  their  brethren  from  attacks  which  have  been  sometimes 
unfair,  and  from  charges  which  have  been  sometimes  unjust. 
Knowing  that  the  practice  of  vivisection  was  followed  in  an  honest 
and  sincere  desire  for  the  advancement  of  science,  sympathy  has 
been  felt  for  the  experimental  physiologists,  even  by  many  who 
disapproved  of  their  method  of  research.  Expression  of  this 
sympathy  by  Medical  Councils  and  Societies  has  given  the  appear- 
ance of  a  general  feeling  widely  at  variance  with  the  "indignation 
and  abhorrent  dislike "  expressed  by  the  editors  of  the  Medico- 
Chirurglcal  Review,  in  the  passage  already  quoted,  and  which 
undoubtedly  represented  the  opinions  of  the  profession  at  that 
period. 

A  third  and  more  marked  element  in  the  change  of  opinion  is 
the  discovery  of  anaesthetics,  and   their  use  in  the   performance  of 
A* 


10  VIVISECTION. 

experiments.  It  is  generally  supposed  that  the  use  of  chloroform 
renders  impossible  the  horrible  cruelties,  especially  in  French  labor- 
atories, the  reports  of  which  caused  Englishmen  to  view  the  whole 
system  of  vivisection  with  pain  and  dislike.  The  introduction  of 
anaesthetics  has  thus  lessened  the  antipathy  and  quieted  the  opposi- 
tion of  mauy  professional  men.  But  it  has  at  the  same  time 
diverted  attention  from  the  main  question,  from  a  scientific  point  of 
view,  whether  vivisection  is  a  legitimate  method  of  research,  under 
whatever  conditions.  The  object  of  this  essay  is  to  maintain  the 
negative,  and  this  both  on  scientific  and  ethical  grounds. 

It  may  be  well  here  to  clear  the  way  by  a  few  further  remarks 
on  the  use  of  anaesthetics  in  vivisection.  The  phrase,  "  painful 
experiments,"  may  lead  to  misunderstanding.  In  some  experiments 
anaesthetics  are  used,  in  others  they  are  not  used,  and,  in  fact,  would 
interfere  with  the  results.  In  places  registered  under  the  Vivi- 
section Act,  the  use  of  them  is  left  to  the  conscience  and  judgment 
of  the  licensed  operator.  The  majority  of  experiments,  as  of  the 
public  demonstrations,  may  be  called  painless;  but  vast  numbers 
are  not  so.  Many  of  them  extend  over  long  periods  of  time,  during 
which  the  effect  of  chloroform  has  passed  off.  It  is  not  always  that 
the  animals  are  "  mercifully  put  out  of  pain,"  as  one  physiologist 
tells  us  is  the  usage  at  Guy's  Hospital.  In  other  London  hospitals, 
experiments  are  on  record  where  the  investigations  lasted  day  and 
night  for  weeks  together.  The  readers  of  medical  journals  know 
that  animals  are  often  kept  alive  in  a  mutilated  state,  for  the  repeti- 
tion or  variation  of  experiments.  Take  but  one  instance  from  the 
Handbook  of  the  Physiological  Laboratory  (p.  403),  a  demonstration 
upon  "  Recurrent  sensibility : "  "This  can  be  shown  only  in  the 
higher  animals,  the  cat  or  dog  being  best  adapted  for  the  purpose 
The  method  adopted  is  this  :  The  arches  of  one  or  two  vertebrae 
are  carefully  sawn  through,  or  cut  through  with  the  bone  forceps, 
and  the  exposed  roots  very  carefully  freed  from  the  connective 
tissue  surrounding  them.  If  the  animals  be  strong,  and  have 
thoroughly  recovered  from  the  chloroform,  and  from  the  operation, 
irritation  of  the  peripheral  stump  of  the  anterior  root  causes  not 
only  contraction  in  the  muscles,  but  also  movements  in  other  parts 
of  the  body,  indicative  of  pain.  On  dividing  the  mixed  trunk  the 
contractions  cease,  but  the  general  signs  of  paiu  or  sensation 
remain." 


IS   IT    USEFUL   OK   JUSTIFIABLE ?  II 

The  Blue  Book  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Vivisection  contains 
many  similar  facts.  Dr.  Klein  stated,  in  reply  to  question  as  to 
use  of  chloroform  (3605),  "  I  prefer  and  use  chloral  hydrate;  but 
as  a  general  rule,  for  my  scientific  investigations,  I  do  not  use 
chloroform,  or  any  other  anaesthetic,  except  for  convenience  sake,  in 
dogs  and  cats,  and  for  no  other  animals,  as  a  general  rule."  Being 
asked  (3631)  if  he  did  not  perform  operations  which  involved  a 
great  deal  of  pain  to  the  animal,  the  answer  was:  "  Not  as  opera- 
tions, but  in  their  eventual  results,  we  do  occasionally." 

Ah  !  it  is  these  "  eventual  results  "  that  are  mainly  to  be  con- 
sidered in  this  question  of  anaesthetics.  The  knife  may  be  used 
while  the  animal  is  under  the  influence  of  chloroform  ;  but  what  of 
the  resultant  injury  and  mutilation,  and  the  consequences  of  the 
experiments?  Life,  if  not  destroyed  " mercifully,"  may  be  made 
miserable  for  the  poor  creatures.  The  words  of  Dr.  George  Hoggau 
sound  strangely  paradoxical  at  first,  but  they  convey  a  sad  truth 
nevertheless : — "  /  am  inclined  to  look  upon  ancestheties  as  the 
greatest  curse  to  vivisectable  animals.  They  alter  too  much,"  he 
explains,  "  the  normal  conditions  of  life  to  give  accurate  results, 
and  they  are  therefore  little  depended  upon.  They,  indeed,  prove 
far  more  efficacious  in  lulling  public  feeling  towards  the  vivisectors 
than  pain  in  the  vivisected." 

So  much  for  "painless  experiments."  With  few  and  unimport- 
ant exceptions,  I  hold  that  all  experiments  on  living  animals — all, 
at  least,  to  which  objection  is  made  in  this  essay — are  painful  ; 
painful  either  at  the  time  or  in  "  eventual  results,"  whether  these 
be  mutilation,  disease  or  death.  I  hope  to  show  that  they  are 
scientifically  needless  and  ethically  wrong,  and  that  therefore  vivi- 
section ought  to  be  discouraged  and  condemned  by  the  medical 
profession. 

It  may  be  thought  by  some  that  this  is  an  unseasonable  time  to 
renew  or  to  extend  the  agitation  against  vivisection.  An  Act  of 
Parliament,  they  say,  has  been  passed,  as  the  result  of  a  Royal 
Commission  of  inquiry,  and  is  now  in  operation,  after  being 
accepted,  if  not  approved,  by  the  representative  bodies  of  the  medical 
profession.  The  proceedings  of  experimenters  are  under  regula- 
tions, imposed  by  the  collective  wisdom  of  Parliament,  and  with 
Inspectors  to  exercise  wholesome  supervision  and  control.     Places 


1 2  VIVISECTION. 

where  experiments  are  performed  must  be  registered ;  experimenters 
must  have  licenses,  either  ordinary  or  special;  and  reports  are 
made  by  the  inspectors.  Why  not  wait  to  see  how  the  Act 
works  ?  Such  is  at  present  the  laissez  faire  tone  of  professional 
opinion,  and  it  is  largely  shared  by  the  general  public. 

In  opposition  to  this  spirit  of  indifference,  I  maintain  that  the 
sooner  and  the  more  fully  this  matter  is  discussed  the  better.  And 
this  not  in  the  cause  of  humanity  only,  but  in  the  interests  of  science, 
and  for  the  honor  of  our  profession. 

If  this  new  system  of  research  and  of  instruction  is  wrong,  let  it 
not  have  time  to  take  deep  root  and  to  spread  in  our  medical 
schools.  To  the  credit  of  the  profession  in  Ireland,  the  programme 
of  the  practical  course  of  Institutes  of  Medicine,  under  the  joint 
direction  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  the  College  of  Physicians, 
concludes  with  the  significant  "  N.  B. — '  Vivisections  are  absolutely 
prohibited.'"  Even  if  this  prohibition  is  still  maintained  in 
Ireland,  we  fear  that  it  will  not  for  some  time  be  imitated  in  other 
schools.  The  number  of  licensed  vivisectors  may  vary  from  year 
to  year,  but  the  names  of  those  to  whom  licenses  are  granted  are 
kept  secret,  and  the  reports  of  the  Inspectors  are  not  open  to  the 
public.  No  one  can  tell  the  nature  or  extent  of  the  experimental 
researches,  except  so  far  as  the  operators  choose  to  record  them  in 
medical  journals,  as  Professor  Rutherford  has  done ;  or  to  bring 
them  before  scientific  societies,  as  Professor  Ferrier  has  done  in  his 
Reports  to  the  British  Association.  The  publication  of  such  experi- 
ments is  sure  to  give  a  fresh  impulse  to  research  by  vivisection. 

I  think,  therefore,  the  time  has  come  for  making  an  appeal  to 
the  medical  profession  for  a  calm  inquiry  as  to  the  position  and 
claims  of  the  system.  Enough  has  been  done  to  bring  the  matter 
before  the  general  public.  There  is  no  fear  of  the  agitation  out  of 
doors  being  at  an  end,  although  the  advocates  of  vivisection  seem 
to  think  that  the  licensing  of  laboratories  has  silenced  their  oppo- 
nents. No  Act  of  Parliament  can  suppress  public  sentiment  on  this 
question.  It  will  not  be  wise  in  the  medical  profession  to  set  itself 
in  direct  and  obstinate  opposition  to  this  public  sentiment.  If,  on 
the  one  side,  there  has  been  too  much  unintelligent  clamor  against 
vivisection,  there  has  been,  on  the  other  side,  too  little  of  fair 
discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  case.  At  the  same  time,  a  very  large 
number  of   medical  men  have  not  committed  themselves    to  the 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  J  3 

advocacy  of  vivisection.  The  great  majority,  I  am  certain,  have 
not  specially  considered  the  subject,  and  have  not  any  feeling  beyond 
unwillingness  to  separate  themselves  from  their  brethren,  when 
attacks  seem  to  be  made  on  the  profession. 

I  put  the  question  lately  to  the  senior  physician  of  one  of  our 
great  London  hospitals,  if  he  thought  vivisection  had  added  any- 
thing to  our  resources  which  might  not  have  been  otherwise 
obtained,  and  his  reply  was  that  he  had  not  studied  the  matter  so 
as  to  give  an  answer.  Another  physician,  occupying  one  of  the 
highest  positions  in  the  profession,  on  my  asking  him  about  some 
alleged  physiological  discoveries,  said  he  must    inquire  from  his 

friend,  P.  S ,  naming  a  surgeon  and   experimenter  of  Guy's 

Hospital.  In  the  same  way  I  have  tested  other  medical  friends, 
and  find  they  are  at  a  loss  to  name  any  practical  benefits  derived 
from  vivisection.  They  are  told  that  important  investigations  are 
instituted,  and  they  are  unwilling  to  object  to  any  mode  of  research 
which  is  said  to  give  promise  of  results.  Comparatively  few  have 
personally  studied  the  question  ;  or  have  ventured  openly  to  express 
doubt  or  disapproval.  I  believe  there  must  be  many  who  would 
be  willing  to  see  the  system  fairly  examined,  and  who  would  even 
be  glad  to  find  that  the  result  of  this  examination  was  in  harmony 
with  public  sentiment,  and  with  the  former  all  but  unanimous 
opinion  of  the  medical  profession  in  England. 

It  is  to  these  men,  not  committed  to  the  advocacy  of  vivisection, 
but  willing  to  hear  what  can  be  said  against  as  well  as  for  it,  that  I 
address  myself.  It  would  be  far  more  easy  to  write  a  large  volume 
than  a  short  essay  with  this  purpose.  In  describing  and  analyzing 
the  reports  of  physiological  laboratories  it  would  be  easy  to  multiply 
proofs  and  illustrations  of  the  fallacies  underlying  this  mode  of 
inquiry,  and  to  point  out  the  contradictory  results  of  different 
experimenters.  It  wrould  be  easy,  also,  to  gather  from  the  records 
of  scientific  research  and  medical  practice  a  great  mass  of  observed 
facts  and  phenomena,  establishing  all  the  important  conclusions 
which  vivisection  claims  as  discoveries.  But  to  enter  into  volumin- 
ous details  or  minute  arguments  would  defeat  the  purpose  of  this 
essay.  The  design  of  the  writer  is  to  state  briefly  but  clearly  the 
principles  of  the  controversy ;  and  by  showing  that  vivisection  is 
indefensible,  on  the  ground  of  science  as  well  as  of  sentiment,  to 
urge  medical  men  to  re-occupy  the  same  position  which  was  honor- 


14  VIVISECTION. 

ably  maintained  by  the  leaders  of  the  profession  in  England  before 
this  new  invasion  from  foreign  schools  of  physiology. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  Address  by  Sir  James  Y. 
Simpson,  on  "  The  Modern  Advancement  of  Physic."  It  is  a  bright 
and  cheering  record  of  progress  in  the  healing  art  during  the  first 
half  of  the  present  century.  If  any  one  doubts  whether  medicine 
has  made  marked  advance,  or  is  ever  despondent  as  to  its  prospects 
in  the  future,  let  him  read  that  essay,  and  he  will  find  proofs  of 
progress  as  great  and  rapid  as  in  any  department  of  knowledge  or 
art.  It  is  a  retrospect  at  once  instructive  and  encouraging.  The 
enumeration  of  improvements  both  in  medicine  and  surgery  will 
surprise  those  who  have  not  considered  the  state  of  science  and  of 
practice  at  an  earlier  period  than  that  passed  under  review.  With- 
out going  into  many  details,  a  few  of  the  results  may  be  noted. 

After  the  middle  of  last  century  the  mortality  of  children  under 
five  years  of  age,  in  London,  was  above  fifty  in  the  hundred.  It  is 
now  not  more  than  from  thirty  to  thirty-five.  The  saving  of  life 
by  improvement  in  the  hygiene  and  management  of  infancy  is  now 
more  than  100,000  human  beings  a  year  throughout  Great  Britain. 
The  average  mortality  at  all  ages,  and  especially  in  towns,  has 
remarkably  decreased ;  and  the  chances  of  life  have'  steadily 
increased.  Some  of  the  diseases  which  were  formerly  among  the 
most  fatal  in  the  bills  of  mortality,  scurvy,  dysentery,  ague,  and 
smallpox,are  now  low  in  the  lists.  The  treatment  of  actual  disease 
is  only  one  department  of  practical  medicine.  The  preservation  of 
health  and  the  prolongation  of  life  are  equally  important.  These 
objects  are  attained  on  the  large  scale  by  the  prevention  of  disease 
much  more  than  by  its  cure.  It  may  be  long  before  specific  cures 
are  found  for  other  fatal  diseases,  as  effective  as  those  which  have 
checked  the  mortality  from  ague,  scurvy,  and  smallpox.  "  But 
does  not  the  history  of  the  past,"  says  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson, 
"  encourage  us  to  a  bold  belief  that  pur  present  most  fatal  diseases 
may,  by  the  advancement  of  hygienic  and  medical  means,  be  our 
most  fatal  diseases  no  longer?  "  .  .  I  confess  that  I  cannot  but 
entertain  an  ardent  belief  that  medical  science  may  yet  devise 
measures,  prophylactic  perhaps,  rather  than  curative,  to  stay  the 
great  destruction  of  human  life  prevailing  amongst  us  from  the 
most  fatal  of  these  affections — phthisis.     Perhaps  a  more  advanced 


18    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  15 

pathology  and  chemistry  may  yet  ere  long  furnish  us  with  more 
enlightened  views  of  pneumonia  and  other  inflammatory  disorders 
than  we  yet  possess,  and  arm  us  with  more  sure  and  potent  medicinal 
weapons  and  resources  agaiust  them.  We  have,  from  the  experience 
of  the  last  few  years,  every  reason  to  hope  that  the  whole  class  of 
zymotic  diseases  will  be  greatly  subdued  betimes  in  intensity  and 
violence  when  the  investigation  of  the  physical  causes  predisposing 
to  them,  or  even  actually  exciting  them,  is  more  fully  expiscated. 

"Besides,  if  by  vaccination  during  infancy,  medicine  has  devised 
means  to  arrest  the  ravages  of  smallpox,  may  it  not  yet  devise 
means  also,  by  inoculation  or  otherwise,  to  arrest  the  ravages  of 
scarlet  fever  and  measles,  of  hooping-cough,  of  typhus  fever,  and 
perhaps  of  the  whole  class  of  non-recurrent  diseases  ?  And  even  if 
we  fail  to  arrest  them,  we  may  possibly  find  out,  for  the  various 
animal  poisons  producing  these  diseases,  antidotes  as  certaiu  as 
quinine  and  arsenic  are  antidotes  against  the  poison  of  marsh  fever. 

"Let  us  at  least  not  sit  indolently  down  and  argue  ourselves  into 
the  belief  that  it  is  impossible  to  attain  such  results.  The  conquest 
of  smallpox  seemed  to  our  forefathers,  a  hundred  years  ago,  as 
impossible  as  the  conquest  of  these  maladies  can  look  to  any  one 
now;  and  yet  we  all  know  that  the  subjugation  of  smallpox  was 
effected  by  the  genius  of  one  man,  and  by  the  devotion  of  one  mind 
to  its  accomplishment. 

"  Some  time  before  Jenuer  turned  his  attention  to  the  subject,  the 
learned  and  accomplished  Dr.  Mead,  the  first  London  physician  of 
his  day,  wrote  of  the  utter  hopelessness  of  the  very  idea  of  battling 
with  and  vanquishing  such  a  formidable  enemy  to  human  life  and 
happiness  as  smallpox.  He  speaks  of  the  possibility  of  'a  specific 
antidote  being  found  against  the  contagions  of  smallpox ; '  that  is, 
an  antidote  '  by  which  it  may  be  so  thoroughly  destroyed  that, 
though  it  had  been  received  into  the  body,  it  may  not  produce  the 
disease,'  as  an  idea  as  wild  and  chimerical  as  that  of  alchemy;  and 
one,  in  his  opinion,  'outraging  the  principles  and  elements  of  things 
that  are  so  certain  and  well-established  by  the  permanent  laws  of 
nature.' 

"  These  disheartening  opinions  of  Dr.  Mead,  regarding  the  hope- 
lessness of  ever  gaining  a  prophylactic  for  smallpox,  were  published 
in  1747.  Before  fifty  years  had  elapsed  Jenner  had  both  discovered 
and  successfully  applied  to  practice  the  great  prophylactic  measure 


16  VIVISECTION. 

that  lias   rendered    his   name  imperishable  in  the  annals  of  the 
human  race. 

"  Meanwhile,  the  prevention  of  diseases  by  the  methodized 
avoidance  of  their  causes  has  made  a  mighty  advance  during  the 
last  twenty  or  thirty  years.  Where  the  preceding  causes  of  disease 
have  been  set  aside  from  special  communities  by  proper  sanitary 
arrangements,  human  life  has,  in  such  communities,  been  prolonged, 
and  the  physical  as  well  as  moral  health  and  happiness  of  the  inhab- 
itants have  been  correspondingly  ameliorated." 

The  progress  of  surgery  has  been  not  less  marked  than  that  of 
medicine;  and  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson  gives  a  brilliant  enumeration 
of  improvements  both  as  to  operations  and  general  treatment.  In 
operative  surgery,  the  abrogation  of  pain  and  suffering  by  anaesthetics 
has  been  a  wonderful  improvement;  but  an  even  greater  mark  of 
progress  is  the  increasing  endeavor  to  heal  and  to  cure,  without 
operations,  cases  and  diseases  in  which  operations  were  formerly 
considered  indispensable.  More  than  ever  is  surgery  associated 
with  medicine  in  the  object  of  preservation  and  cure.  And  where 
operations  are  still  required,  the  surgeon  knows  that,  in  eight  or 
nine  cases  out  often,  the  risk  is  not  from  surgical  lesions,  but  from 
constitutional  complications  of  a  truly  medical  nature.  Hence,  both 
surgery  and  medicine  are  indebted  for  their  progress  to  the  better 
knowledge  of  principles  which  underlie  every  department  of  the 
healing  art.  "  At  the  present  day,"  says  Sir  James,  "  we  can 
scarcely  appreciate  the  vast  importance  of  some  of  these  branches 
of  study,  and  the  advantage  which  a  knowledge  of  them  gives  us  as 
practitioners  over  the  cultivators  of  medicine  half  a  century  ago. 
Nor,  perhaps,  would  it  be  possible  to  see  and  appreciate  them  in 
their  proper  value,  unless  we  were  actually  again  deprived  of  their 
aid — in  pathology,  diagnosis,  and  practice — and  unless  all  the 
knowledge  and  advantages  springing  from  them  came  to  be  suddenly 
obliterated  and  blotted  out." 

What,  then,  are  the  departments  of  research  which  Sir  James  Y. 
Simpson  specifies  as  having  led  to  the  modern  advancement  of 
physic,  and  which  give  hope  of  future  progress  ?  The  first  is  patho- 
logical or  morbid  anatomy,  a  branch  of  study,  in  its  systematized 
form,  almost  wholly  of  modern  growth.     Secondly,  pathological 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  17 

histology  has  opened  up  a  wide  field  of  knowledge  concerning  the 
origin,  character,  and  courses  of  different  diseases,  and  diseased 
actions  and  structures.  A  third  department  of  research  is  that  of 
pathological  chemistry,  which  has  afforded  new  and  important 
information  regarding  the  actual  character  and  nature  of  disease. 
Along  with  these  three  departments  of  medical  science — pathological 
anatomy,  pathological  histology,  and  pathological  chemistry — the 
practitioner  has  acquired  new  means  of  physical  diagnosis,  by  which 
to  detect  the  presence  or  effects  of  morbid  conditions  in  the  living 
patient.  The  use  of  the  microscope,  and  of  various  chemical  tests 
to  the  fluid  excretions  of  the  body,  has  helped  to  improve  the 
diagnosis  of  disease.  Nor  must  we  omit  the  improvements  in 
materia  medica,  whether  in  the  form  of  the  remedies  or  in  the 
methods  of  applying  them,  so  as  to  exert  their  medicinal  influence 
upon  the  body,  or  upon  the  different  organs  or  functions  of  it. 

On  all  these,  and  on  other  points,  the  essay  of  Sir  James  Simpson 
gives  gratifying  testimony  of  recent  progress,  with  encouraging' 
anticipations  of  the  future.  No  physician  in  our  times  has  been 
more  fully  acquainted  with  all  the  discoveries  and  researches  both 
of  English  and  foreign  workers  and  authors.  Yet  the  address 
contains  not  one  word  about  experiments  upon  living  animals,  not 
one  reference  to  those  "  physiological  laboratories"  to  which  many 
are  now  looking  for  new  knowledge  and  power.  The  eye  is  directed 
throughout  to  the  researches  of  legitimate  science,  and  no  help 
is  expected  from  the  lurid  light  of  vivisection. 

There  are  many,  however,  who  have  a  vague  idea  that  the  begin- 
ning of  all  this  progress  was  due  to  experiments  on  living  animals. 
Let  us  examine  the  instance  which  is  always  put  in  the  front  by 
advocates  of  vivisection — the  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood.  It  appears  in  every  list  of  alleged  discoveries  from  this  mode 
of  research,  and  would  probably  be  the  first  mentioned  in  any  con- 
troversy on  the  subject.  When  Sir  William  Gull  was  asked  by  the 
Royal  Commissioners  if  he  could  "  enumerate  any  considerable 
number  of  therapeutic  remedies  which  have  been  discovered  by  this 
process  of  vivisection  ?  "  the  answer  was — "  The  cases  bristle  around 
us  everywhere  ;  our  knowledge  of  dropsical  affections,  of  pulmonary 
apoplexy,  of  enlargement  of  the  liver,  and  the  whole  category  of  such 
affections,  was  due  to  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation."  Here 
vivisection  gets  credited  with  not  only  Harvey's  discovery,  but  with 


18  VIVISECTION. 

all  the  conseqrences  of  the  knowledge  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood! 
But  what  if  this  discovery  was  not  wholly  due  to  vivisection? 

It  is  not  necessary,  in  examining  this  question,  to  depreciate  the 
claim  of  Harvey  to  great  renown,  nor  to  inquire  how  far  the  dis- 
covery was  anticipated  by  others,  or  what  share  they  have  in  the 
discovery.  The  only  point  here  to  be  discussed  is,  "  Was  the  dis- 
covery due  to  vivisection  ?  "  The  Royal  Commissioners  say  that 
"  Harvey  appears  to  have  been  almost  entirely  indebted  to  vivisection 
for  the  ever-memorable  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  " — 
the  old  and  constant  reiteration,  but  with  more  cautious  assertion 
than  is  usual. 

Harvey  himself  did  not  rest  his  entire  claims  on  vivisection.  "  I 
remember,"  writes  Robert  Boyle,  "  that  when  I  asked  our  famous 
Harvey,  in  the  only  discourse  I  had  with  him  (which  was  but  a 
little  while  before  he  died),  what  were  the  things  that  induced  him 
to  think  of  a  circulation  of  the  blood,  he  assured  me  that  when  he 
took  notice  that  the  valves  in  the  veins  of  so  many  parts  of  the 
body  were  so  placed  that  they  gave  free  passage  to  the  blood  towards 
the  heart,  but  opposed  the  passage  of  the  blood  the  contrary  way, 
he  was  invited  to  think  that  so  provident  a  cause  as  Nature  had 
not  placed  so  many  valves  without  a  design ;  and  no  design  seemed 
more  probable  than  that,  since  the  blood  could  not,  because  of  the 
interposing  valves,  be  sent  by  the  veins  to  the  limbs,  it  should  be 
sent  through  the  arteries,  and  return  through  the  veins,  whose 
valves  did  not  oppose  the  course  that  way."  It  is  probable  that 
some  vivisectors  do  not  know  who  Robert  Boyle  is,  or  why  his 
testimony  is  of  weight,  but  those  who  do  will  not  undervalue  this 
record  of  Harvey's  own  account  of  what  led  to  the  discovery.  It 
was  Fabricius,  of  Padua,  Harvey's  master  in  anatomy,  who  pointed 
out  to  him  this  arrangement  of  the  valves,  but  Harvey's  genius  led 
him  to  connect  it  with  the  various  facts  of  the  circulation  already 
known  to  Cesalpino,  Servetus,  and  other  observers.  To  his  students 
at  Pisa  and  at  Rome,  Cesalpino  taught  the  circulation  from  the 
veins  to  the  right  side  of  the  heart,  thence  to  the  lungs,  and  from 
the  lungs  to  the  left  side  of  the  heart,  and  to  the  arteries.  The 
astonishing  thing  is  that  the  complete  discovery  was  so  long  delayed, 
not  that  it  came  when  it  did.  The  state  of  science  in  England,  far 
behind  that  of  Italy  before  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
caused    Harvey's    announcements  to    be  received  with   wondering 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  19 

admiration.  But  he  neither  began  nor  completed  the  discovery  by 
his  experiments  on  living  animals.  He  exhibited  some  points 
already  known  to  Italian  physicians,  but  his  demonstrations  failed 
to  convince  such  men  as  Riolan,  of  Paris,  and  Hoffman,  of  Nurem- 
berg. Even  Dr.  Willis,  the  biographer  of  Harvey,  admits  that 
"  he  left  the  doctrine  of  the. circulation  as  an  inference  or  induction 
only,  not  as  a  sensible  demonstration.  He  adduced  certain  circum- 
stances, and  quoted  various  anatomical  facts,  which  made  a  con- 
tinuous transit  of  the  blood  from  the  arteries  into  the  veins,  from 
the  veins  into  the  arteries,  a  necessary  consequence  ;  but  he  never 
saw  this  transit;  his  idea  of  the  way  in  which  it  was  accomplished 
was  even  defective;  he  had  no  notion  of  the  one  order  of  sanguifer- 
ous vessels  ending  by  uninterrupted  continuity,  or  by  an  interme- 
diate vascular  network  in  the  other  order." 

It  was  only  when  Malpighi  brought  the  microscope  into  play 
that  the  visible  demonstration  was  perfect,  or  at  least  completed. 
What  Malpighi  saw  in  the  frog's,  foot,  Leeuwenhock  saw  after- 
wards in  a  tadpole,  a  bat's  wing,  and  a  fish's  tail.  When  colored 
fluids  were  injected  in  the  dead  body,  another  form  of  demonstra- 
tion was  given. 

Harvey's  treatise,  "De  motu  cordis  et  sanguinis  cireulo,"  beau- 
tifully systematized  all  that  was  known  at  his  time,  and  his  experi- 
ments demonstrate  some  points,  but  to  describe  the  discovery  as  due 
to  vivisection  is  an  error.  It  is  not  possible  to  ascertain  the  circu- 
lation or  to  see  it  in  its  entirety  in  the  living  body.  The  very  act 
of  vivisection  renders  the  demonstration  impossible,  and  the  dis- 
covery is  due  to  observation  of  the  dead  body,  not  to  experiment 
on  the  living.  We  shall  continue  to  hear  Harvey's  name  cited  by 
vivisectors,  but  his  own  testimony  is  that  he  was  first  led  to  the 
discovery  by  anatomical  observation,  and  by  reasoning  therefrom.* 

Next  to  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  the  discovery  of  the  distinct 
offices  of  the  anterior  and  posterior  roots  of  the  spinal  nerves,  and 
the  columns  from  which  they  arise,  is  the  favorite  instance  of  the 
results  of  vivisection.     It  is  strange  how  vivisectors  insist  on  a  claim 

*  If  this  discovery  were  really  of  such  measureless  importance  (or  rather  the 
part  due  to  Harvey),  we  must  look  to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  for 
the  advent  of  a  new  era  in  the  resources  and  the  success  of  the  practitioners  of 
the  healing  art.  We  might  expect  to  find  from  that  date  the  death-rate  wonder- 
fully lessened,  and  life  wonderfully  prolonged.     Was  it  so  ? 


20  VIVISECTION. 

which  Sir  Charles  Bell  has  himself  denied  and  repudiated.  His 
express  statements  as  to  the  purely  anatomical  source  of  his  discovery 
have  already  been  quoted.  I  have  lately  conversed  on  the  subject 
with  Mr.  Shaw,  Sir  Charles  Bell's  friend  and  relative,  and  the  able 
editor  and  expositor  of  his  published  researches.  Mr.  Shaw  tells 
me  that  Sir  Charles  invariably  spoke  of  his  discovery  as  due  to 
anatomical  investigation;  that  his  experiments  were  performed  with 
the  utmost  reluctance,  and  were  considered  by  him  unnecessary ; 
and  that  he  often  referred  to  the  uselessness  and  cruelty  of  experi- 
ments on  living  animals.  This  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the 
humane  spirit  that  appears  in  all  the  writings  of  Sir  Charles  Bell. 
The  use  of  anaesthetics  is  also  often  cited  as  an  instance  of  the 
benefit  of  experiments  on  animals.  "  Surely  any  amount  of  suffer- 
ing that  the  case  might  have  required  might  have  been  legitimately 
inflicted  upon  the  lower  animals,  to  secure  such  an  inestimable  boon 
to  humanity."  These  are  the  words  of  Dr.  Carpenter,  a  humane 
man  as  well  as  a  distinguished  physiologist,  and  who,  Avhen  a 
lecturer  on  physiology,  never  exhibited  experiments  on  living 
animals  to  his  pupils.  Dr.  Carpenter,  it  will  be  observed,  puts  the 
case  hypothetically — might  have  been  legitimately  inflicted.  He 
knew  that  ether,  and  chloroform,  and  the  anaesthetic  uses  of  them, 
were  not  discovered  by  experimenting  on  living  animals,  in  the 
sense  that  vivisectors  wish  the  statement  to  be  understood.  The 
fact  is,  that  the  use  of  chloroform  was  the  result  of  an  experiment, 
and  rather  a  perilous  one,  tried  by  Sir  James  Simpson  upon  himself, 
and  by  his  assistant,  Dr.  Keith,  as  they  have  graphically  narrated. 
The  previous  use  of  ether  as  an  anaesthetic  was  also  the  result  of 
experiments  upon  himself  by  an  American  dentist.  Many  experi- 
ments have  since  been  performed  on  animals  ;  but  the  reference  to 
anaesthetics,  as  an  argument  for  vivisection,  is  an  unworthy  appeal 
to  popular  ignorance  of  the  real  state  of  the  case. 

Not  less  futile  is  the  claim  made  as  to  the  discovery  of  vaccina- 
tion being  due  to  experiments  on  living  animals.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  discovery  was  made  by  Dr.  Jenner,  from  observation.  He 
observed  that  many  of  the  people  in  the  dairy  district  of  Gloucester 
enjoyed  a  remarkable  immunity  from  smallpox.  On  making 
inquiries  he  observed  that  cows  had  occasionally  a  pustular  eruption 
on  the  udder,  and  that  those  who  milked  them  contracted  similar 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR    JUSTIFIABLE?  21 

pustular  disease  on  their  hauds.  He  observed  that  such  persons 
enjoyed  sure  immunity  from  smallpox.  He  ascertained  that  this 
was  the  general  and  long-known  experience  of  the  country  people. 
They  had  not  reasoned  on  the  subject,  but  they  had  observed  the 
facts  which  Dr.  Jenner  now  observed,  and  in  consequence  of  which 
he  carried  on  the  inquiry,  guided  by  his  superior  knowledge  and 
indo-ment.  He  observed  that  those  cows  which  had  their  udders 
affected  had  been  milked  by  persons  who  had  been  handling  horses 
with  the  affection  known  as  "grease  in  the  hoof."  The  two  facts, 
ascertained  by  pure  observation,  were,  that  certain  persons  enjoyed 
immunity  from  smallpox,  and  that  this  immunity  was  due  to  the 
action  on  the  system  of  another  virus  derived  from  a  pustular 
affection  in  the  lower  animals.  These  observed  facts  really  formed 
the  basis  of  that  discovery  which  has  been  of  such  incalculable 
benefit  to  the  human  race.  The  inoculation  of  a  boy  with  this 
animal  virus,  instead  of  the  smallpox  matter,  as  then  done,  supplied 
a  crucial  instance  and  crowning  test  of  the  success  of  the  theory. 
Here  is  Jenner's  own  accouut  of  this  case : — 

"  During  the  investigation  of  the  casual  smallpox  I  was  struck 
with  the  idea  that  it  might  be  practicable  to  propagate  the  disease 
by  inoculation,  after  the  manner  of  the  smallpox — first  from  the 
cow,  and  finally  from  one  human  being  to  another.  I  anxiously 
waited  some  time  for  an  opportunity  of  putting  this  theory  to  the 
test.  At  length  the  period  arrived.  The  first  experiment  was  made 
upon  a  lad  by  the  name  of  Phipps,  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1796, 
in  whose  arm  a  little  of  the  vaccine  virus  was  inserted,  taken  from 
the  hand  of  a  young  woman,  who  had  been  accidentally  infected  by 
a  cow.  Notwithstanding  the  resemblance  which  the  pustule  thus 
excited  in  the  boy's  arm  bore  to  variolous  inoculation,  yet,  as  the 
indisposition  attending  it  was  barely  perceptible,  I  could  scarcely 
persuade  myself  that  the  patient  was  secure  from  the  smallpox. 
However,  on  his  being  inoculated  some  mouths  afterwards,  it  proved 
that  he  was  secure.  This  case  inspired  me  with  confidence;  and, 
as  soon  as  I  could  again  furnish  myself  with  virus  from  the  cow,  I 
made  an  arrangement  for  a  series  of  inoculations.  A  number  of 
children  were  inoculated  in  succession,  one  from  the  other  ;  and 
after  several  months  had  elapsed,  they  were  exposed  to  the  infection  of 
smallpox,  some  by  inoculation,  others  by  variolous  effluvia,  and 
some  in  both  ways,  but  they  all  resisted  it." 


22  VIVISECTION. 

Let  it  be  remarked  here  that  the  discovery  was  made,  and  the 
demonstration  completed,  so  that  the  medical  profession  adopted  the 
practice  of  vaccination,  and  the  whole  civilized  world  recognized  its 
importance  and  value,  before  a  single  experiment  had  been  made 
upon  a  living  animal.  A  few  experiments  were  afterwards  made, 
not  by  Jenner,  such  as  inoculating  a  cow  with  the  virus  from  the 
heel  of  a  horse;  but  this  was  not  necessary  to  prove  the  efficacy  of 
vaccination  in  protecting  the  system  from  smallpox.  It  may  be 
said,  also,  that  the  inoculation  of  Phipps  and  the  other  patients 
were  really  experiments,  and  might  have  first  been  performed  on 
other  animals  without  risking  human  life.  But  experiments  on 
lower  animals,  in  this  as  in  other  researches,  although  giving  some 
ground  for  reasoning  by  analogy,  could  not  be  accepted  as  con- 
clusive. Trial  of  vaccination,  and  of  subsequent  exposure  to  small- 
pox infection,  must,  after  any  number  of  experiments,  have  been 
made  in  actual  practice. 

The  discovery  of  vaccination  by  Jenner,  and  its  adoption  by  the 
profession,  can  by  no  stretch  of  sophistry  be  twisted  into  a  fair 
defence  of  vivisection.  Yet  we  find  Sir  William  Gull  saying  before 
the  Royal  Commission  on  Vivisection  (5529,  evidence): — "The 
whole  theory  of  vaccination  came  from  experiments  on  living 
animals."  We  cannot  for  a  moment  imagine  that  Sir  William  Gull 
was  purposely  misleading  the  Commissioners.  The  fact  of  a  state- 
ment so  unfounded  being  made  by  a  man  so  eminent  as  Sir  William 
Gull,  proves  how  little  accurate  knowledge  exists  of  the  history  of 
those  discoveries  on  which  vivisection  rests  its  claims.  Bold  asser- 
tions are  made,  and  repeated,  till  those  not  familiar  with  the  subject 
receive  them  as  true.  Denials  and  refutations  have  no  chance  of 
equal  attention.  The  public  press  proclaims  and  spreads  abroad 
these  statements,  but  refuses  admission  to  counter-statements,  and 
to  arguments  in  disproof  of  the  claims  of  vivisection. 

"  What  has  vivisection  done  for  humanity  ?"  This  is  the  title 
of  an  article  which  appeared  in  the  British  Medical  Journal,  the 
organ  of  the  British  Medical  Association,  in  January,  1875.  It 
was  at  the  time  when  there  was  considerable  agitation,  both  within 
and  beyond  the  profession,  in  consequence  of  the  prosecution,  of 
some  medical  men  at  Norwich,  at  the  instance  of  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals.     The  case  attracted  much  public 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR    JUSTIFIABLE?  23 

notice,  and  the  report  of  the  proceedings  has  been  published  in 
detail.  It  is  not  necessary  to  refer  to  it  here,  except  briefly  to 
remind  my  readers  of  the  circumstances  of  the  trial,  which  led,  as 
will  be  seen,  to  events  of  great  public  importance. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  British  Medical  Association  at  Norwich, 
in  1874,  M.  Magnan,  a  French  physiologist  of  high  repute,  was 
invited  or  offered  to  exhibit  on  live  animals  some  experiments 
demonstrating  the  effects  of  alcohol  on  the  system.  Dogs  were 
fastened  down  to  the  operating  tables  by  their  heads  and  legs,  and 
then,  through  tubes  inserted  into  their  thighs,  absinthe  and  other 
alcoholic  fluids  were  injected.  The  operator  was  assisted  by  several 
medical  practitioners  of  Norwich,  and  there  were  numerous 
spectators. 

An  eminent  London  surgeon  was  nominated  as  arbitrator,  and 
allowed  the  experiments  to  continue;  acting,  as  we  are  willing  to 
believe,  against  his  better  feeling  and  judgment,  with  a  desire  not 
to  seem  to  oppose  the  principle  of  experimenting  upon  living 
animals,  rather  than  with  direct  approval  of  this  particular  series  of 
demonstrations. 

The  cruel  proceedings  did  not,  however,  go  on  without  protest 
from  some  who  were  present.  Mr.  Tuffnell,  President  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Surgeons  of  Dublin,  loudly  expressed  his  indignation  at  what 
he  witnessed,  and  during  one  of  the  operations  cut  the  tapes  by 
which  the  poor  victim  was  bound,  and  setting  it  at  liberty  left  the 
place  in  disgust.  On  his  way  out  of  the  house  he  also  set  free  a 
number  of  cats  which  were  shut  up  in  a  room  waiting  for  being 
experimented  on.  The  great  majority  remained  to  see  the  experi- 
ments. 

The  Royal  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals 
very  properly  instituted  proceedings  against  the  Norwich  medical 
men  who  assisted  at  the  operations,  M.  Magnan  being  beyond  reach 
of  prosecution.  At  the  trial,  witnesses  described  the  "groaning" 
of  the  dogs,  their  "  writhing  agony,"  and  in  one  of  them,  "  epileptic 
convulsions,"  all  which  made  what  was  well  called  a  "ghastly 
scene."  Sir  William  Ferguson,  being  asked  at  the  trial  his 
opinion,  condemned  the  whole  exhibition  as  a  wanton  piece  of 
cruelty.  The  general  effects  of  alcohol  on  the  system  are  well 
known;  and  special  points,  indicated  by  M.  Magnan,  could  be 
observed  in   ordinary  practice  far  more  certainly  than  by  experi- 


24  VIVISECTION. 

ments  under  unnatural  conditions.  The  Norwich  magistrates  agreed 
in  the  opinion  that  the  experiments  were  cruel  and  useless  ;  but 
eventually  dismissed  the  case,  as  the  offence  did  not  seem  to  come 
within  the  meaning  of  the  Act  under  which  the  prosecution  was  laid. 

When  the  report  of  the  trial  appeared  in  the  newspapers,  and 
was  widely  circulated  as  a  pamphlet  by  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty 
Society,  public  opinion  was  deeply  moved ;  and  the  agitation 
increased,  till  parliamentary  inquiry  was  demanded,  ending  in  the 
appointment  of  the  Royal  Commission. 

The  professional  vivisectors  and  their  friends  naturally  felt 
alarmed  at  the  agitation.  If  other  cases  were  brought  before  the 
English  magistrates  and  English  juries  the  results  of  the  trials 
might  be  inconvenient,  and  would  certainly  be  discreditable.  The 
influence  of  the  medical  profession  was  therefore  invoked  to  shelter 
the  vivisectors  from  prosecution.  By  active  efforts,  both  with  the 
Government  and  the  public  press,  the  anti-vivisection  movement 
was,  as  far  as  possible,  countermined  ;  and  on  the  appointment  of 
the  Royal  Commission,  two  members  favorable  to  vivisection  were 
nominated,  while  scientific  or  medical  opponents  of  the  system  were 
unrepresented.  The  influence  of  the  General  Medical  Council,  and 
of  various  representative  bodies  and  eminent  men  in  the  profession, 
was  exerted  to  neutralize  the  popular  feeling  against  the  system. 

The  majority  of  the  profession  acquiesced  in  the  proceedings  of 
the  scientific  defenders  of  vivisection,  and  resented  the  popular 
agitation,  which  was  made  to  appear  as  if  it  were  the  result  of 
ignorant  and  fanatical  opposition  to  scientific  research.  The  protest 
of  those  medical  men  who  knew  the  real  merits  of  the  question  was 
overborne.  The  moderate  measures  of  Lord  Hartismere  and  of 
Dr.  Lyon  Playfair  were  scouted,  and  the  influence  of  the  General 
Medical  Council  and  the  medical  press,  of  which  Mr.  Erichsen  and 
Professor  Huxley  were  the  representatives  in  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion, directed  the  conduct  of  the  inquiry,  and  led  to  the  Report 
upon  which  the  Legislature  passed  the  present.  Vivisection  Act. 

The  physiological  laboratories  are  now  protected  from  popular 
interference,  and  experimenters  delivered  from  fear  of  prosecution 
under  Acts  previously  in  force.  The  only  hope  now  rests  in  the 
return  of  the  profession  to  the  sounder  scientific  views  which  pre- 
vailed before  the  Continental  ideas  of  physiological  study  aud  edu- 
cation found  favor  in  England. 


IS   IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  25 

The  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris,  at  the  aunual  meeting,  after 
the  Norwich  trial,  testified  its  approval  of  M.  Mag  nan's  researches 
by  awarding  him  a  prize  of  2500  francs.  The  opinion  of  the  medical 
profession  in  England  has  been  divided  as  to  the  acquittal  of  the 
Norwich  experimenters,  the  majority,  perhaps,  approving,  but  a 
large  number  sharing  the  feeling  that  such  experiments  were  not 
demanded  in  the  interests  of  science.  In  order  to  strengthen  the 
feeling  in  favor  of  vivisection  the  article  in  the  British  Medical 
Journal  was  prepared,  to  which  the  attention  of  the  reader  is  now 
invited.  In  it  we  may  be  sure  that  the  strongest  case  is  put  in 
defence  of  the  system,  and  chiefly  on  the  point  of  the  alleged 
necessity  of  vivisection  for  the  advancement  of  physiology. 

The  following  list  of  discoveries  is  given  as  being  due  to 
vivisection  : — 

1.  Discovery  of  the  two  classes  of  nerves,  sensory  and  motor,  by 
Sir  Charles  Bell. 

2.  Discovery  of  the  functions  (motor)  of  the  seventh  pair,  by 
Sir  Charles  Bell.  Previously  to  this  discovery,  the  portio  dura  was 
often  cut  by  surgeons  for  the  cure  of  neuralgia. 

3.  Discovery  of  the  functions  of  the  anterior  and  posterior  roots 
of  the  spinal  nerves,  by  Sir  Charles  Bell. 

4.  Discovery  of  the  functions  of  the  anterior  and  posterior 
columns  of  the  spinal  cord,  by  Brown-Sequard,  and  others. 

5.  Discovery  of  one  of  the  functions  of  the  cerebellum  in  co- 
ordinating muscular  movements,  by  Fleurens,  and  others. 

6.  Discovery  of  the  functions  of  the  gray  matter  on  the  surface 
of  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  as  connected  with  sensation  and  vo- 
lition, by  Fleurens,  Magendie,  and  others. 

7.  Discovery  of  the  motor  functions  of  the  gray  matter  covering 
certain  convolutions  in  the  anterior  part  of  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres, by  Hitiz,  Fritsch,  Ferrier,  Gudden  and  Nothnagel. 

8»  Demonstration  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  by  Harvey. 

9.  Measurement  of  the  static  force  of  the  heart,  and  discovery  of 
other  hydraulic  phenomena  of  the  circulation,  by  Stephen  Hales, 
Ludwig,  etc. 

10.  Discovery  that  atmospheric  air  is  necessary  to  the  main- 
tenance of  life,  and  that  when  stupefied  by  its  withdrawal, 
animals  may  be  resuscitated  by  re-admitting  it,  by  Robert  Boyle, 
1670. 


26  VIVISECTION. 

11.  Discovery  that  atmospheric  air  by  continued  breathing 
becomes  vitiated  and  unfit  for  respiration,  by  Boyle. 

12.  Discovery  that  the  air  was  not  only  vitiated  but  also  dimin- 
ished in  volume  by  the  respiration  of  animals,  by  Mayou,  1674. 

13.  Discovery  of  the  relation,  as  regards  respiration,  between 
animal  and  vegetable  life,  by  Priestley. 

14.  Great  discoveries,  by  Lavoisier,  on  the  physiology  of 
respiration,  from  1775  to  1780;  namely,  that  oxygen  is  the  vital 
element  of  the  air,  and  that  animals  confined  die  when  oxygen  is 
absorbed  or  converted  into  carbonic  acid,  nitrogen  being  entirely 
passive. 

15.  Numerous  facts  in  the  physiology  of  digestion,  observed  by 
Blondlot,  Schwann,  Bernard,  Lehmann  and  others. 

16.  The  discovery  of  the  functions  of  the  lacteals,  by  Colin, 
Bernard,  Ludwig,  and  others. 

17.  The  discovery  of  the  functions  of  the  eighth  pair  of  nerves 
in  relation  to  deglutition,  phonation,  respiration,  and  cardiac  action, 
by  John  Reid  and  others. 

18.  The  discovery  of  the  functions  of  the  sympathetic  system  of 
nerves,  by  Pourfour  de  Petit,  in  1727;  Brachet,  in  1837;  John 
Reid,  and  Brown-Sequard. 

19.  The  discovery  of  the  phenomena  of  diastaltic  or  reflex  action, 
by  Dr.  Marshall  Hall. 

20.  The  discovery  of  the  action  of  light  on  the  retina,  by  Hom- 
green,  Dewar,  and  M'Kendrick. 

21.  The  discovery  of  the  glycogenic  function  of  the  liver,  by 
Bernard,  Macdonnell,  and  Pavy. 

22.  The  discovery  of  the  whole  series  of  facts  in  the  domain  of 
electro-physiology,  by  Matteucci,  Du  Bois-Raymond,  Pfliiger,  and 
many  others. 

It  appears  from  the  evidence  before  the  Royal  Commission  that 
the  article  adopted  as  a  leader  in  the  British  Medical  Journal"wns 
prepared  by  Dr.  J.  G.  M'Kendrick,  Lecturer  on  Physiology,  at 
Edinburgh.  In  reply  to  a  question  by  the  Commissioners  (3878) 
as  to  what  he  thought  vivisection  had  done  for  humanity,  Dr. 
M'Kendrick  referred  to  that  published  article,  adding,  "AH  of  the 
facts  which  were  discovered  by  these  investigations  now  form,  as  it 
were,  the  groundwork  of  the  knowledge  of  all  medical  men  in  the 
detection  and  treatment  of  disease."     At  the  request  of  Lord  Card- 


IS    IT   USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  27 

well,  the  Chairman  of  the  Commission,  the  paper  in  the  Medical 
Journal  was  put  in,  and  is  reprinted  in  the  evidence  (3916). 

Being  asked  if  there  had  been  any  criticisms  on  the  paper,  Dr. 
M'Kendrick  said — "  I  have  not  seen  them  myself  in  any  journal ; 
some  one  told  me  that  he  had  seen  a  criticism  or  some  observation 
about  it  somewhere,  but  I  have  no  distinct  recollection  of  it.  I 
certainly  did  not  see  it"  (3940). 

Whether  any  criticism  has  since  appeared  I  am  not  aware,  but  it 
is  certainly  not  from  the  document  being  unanswerable,  as  a  very 
brief  examination  of  it  will  show. 

On  being  asked  if  the  list  of  22  instances  of  the  benefits  derived 
to  human  beings,  through  the  advancement  of  the  knowledge 
of  physiology  by  means  of  vivisection,  include  the  whole  number, 
the  reply  is :  "  No.  I  think  that  I  have  mentioned  the  most 
important  which  I  can  remember.  I  prepared  that  list  with 
very  great  care  at  the  time,  and  none  besides  occur  to  me  at 
this  moment." 

Now,  let  us  analyze  this  very  carefully  prepared  list  of  discoveries 
alleged  to  be  due  to  vivisection. 

The  first  four  refer  to  the  discovery  of  the  two  classes  of  nerves, 
sensory  and  motor,  and  the  functions  of  the  anterior  and  posterior 
column  of  the  spinal  cord,  by  Sir  Charles  Bell  and  Dr.  Brown- 
Sequard,  and  others. 

Here  is  the  old  and  reiterated  assertion,  as  to  experiment  being 
the  source  of  what  was  really  due  to  observation.  Dr.  M'Kendrick, 
in  his  evidence,  enforced  the  assertion  by  an  illustration.  If,  for 
instance,  a  man  was  paralyzed  on  one  side  of  the  body,  how  could 
we  tell  that  the  paralysis  was  due  to  affection  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  brain,  without  knowing  that  the  fibres  in  the  spinal  cord  cross 
over  at  the  upper  part  of  the  cord  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  brain  ? 
Lord  Cardwell  very  shrewdly  remarked  that  "One  would  have 
supposed  that  the  crossing  of  the  fibres  might  have  been  discovered 
by  anatomy  "  (3879).  The  answer  was,  "  The  practical  fact  is, 
that  it  is  extremely  difficult,  I  should  say  almost  impossible,  to 
trace  accurately  the  course  of  the  fibres  in  the  softer  parts  of  the 
central  nervous  system." 

Could  there  be  a  more  unsatisfactory  tone  of  reply  ?  The  decus- 
sation is  manifest  to  the  naked  eye,  and  can  be  traced  by  the  anato- 
mist even  in  the  softest  parts  when  prepared  for  examination.     Sir 


28  VIVISECTION. 

Charles  Bell  himself  never  made  this  objection.  The  decussations 
have  been  made  still  more  clear  by  sections  for  microscopical 
observation.  The  examination  of  the  dead  body,  in  cases  where 
symptoms  had  been  carefully  observed  during  disease,  has 
supplied  far  more  useful  and  trustworthy  facts  for  diagnosis 
and  treatment  than  all  the  experiments  made  by  physiologists  on 
living  animals. 

The  same  remark  applies  to  all  the  alleged  improvements  from 
experiments  on  the  functions  of  various  parts  of  the  nervous 
system,  including  those  numbered  5,  6,  7,  17,  18,  in  Dr.  M'Kend- 
rick's  list.  It  is  quite  true  that  many  facts  and  phenomena  have 
been  very  conclusively  shown  by  means  of  experiment,  but  it  is  not 
proved  that  observation,  whether  in  the  living  or  the  dead  body, 
could  not  afford  sufficient  knowledge  for  guidance  either  in  the 
preservation  of  health  or  the  treatment  of  disease.  I  maintain  the 
sufficiency  of  facts  obtained  by  observation,  even  in  the  practical 
uses  of  the  alleged  discovery  of  diastaltic  or  reflex"  action  by  the 
experiments  of  Dr.  Marshall  Hall.  These  experiments  are  con- 
stantly appealed  to,  especially  in  arguments  for  vivisection  addressed 
to  the  profession.  For  medical  men  are  quite  as  liable  as  the  out- 
side public  to  be  led  away  by  strong  and  reiterated  assertion,  in 
matters  about  which  they  have  not  leisure  for  personal  and  careful 
examination. 

Dr.  Marshall  Hall's  discovery  of  reflex  action,  it  is  said,  has  led 
to  great  improvements  in  the  treatment  of  epilepsy  and  other  nervous 
diseases ;  he  discovered  reflex  action  by  experiments ;  therefore  we 
must  stand  up  for  vivisection  against  ignorant,  fanatical  clamor ! 
These  are  the  very  words  with  which  a  medical  man,  better  known, 
however,  as  a  naturalist  than  a  practitioner,  answered  my  inquiry 
as  to  what  he  thought  of  vivisection.  It  was  no  use  trying  to  argue 
the  matter  with  him  in  a  passing  talk.  The  physiologists  say 
experiments  have  revolutionized  medical  knowledge  and  practice, 
and  Marshall  Hall's  discovery  alone  is  sufficient  to  establish  their 
position.     Is  it?     Let  us  see. 

Reflex  actions  are  those  arising  from  the  spinal  cord,  independent 
of  the  brain,  induced  by  impressions  on  the  branches  of  nerves, 
even  when  severed  from  any  connection  with  the  brain.  For 
instance,  when  Mr.  Bouillaud,  in  one  of  his  experiments,  had 
destroyed  the  cerebral  lobes  of  a  dog  by  red  hot  irons,  so  that  there 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR    JUSTIFIABLE?  29 

were  no  longer  intelligent  movements,  still  he  found  that  the 
animal  shrank  when  cold  water  was  dashed  at  it,  and  withdrew  its 
feet  when  they  were  pinched.  Sir  George  Burrows  gave  a  less 
repulsive  example  to  the  Royal  Commissioners  (186).  A  man  in 
hospital  is  supposed  to  be  paralyzed;  the  nurse  tells  the  doctor  that 
he  must  be  feigning,  for  she  saw  him  move  his  legs  in  the  night. 
On  being  asked  to  move  his  legs,  he  remains  motionless,  and  is 
evidently  unable,  though  making  effort  of  will  to  do  so.  "But  if 
you  uncover  the  bedclothes,  and  just  touch  the  fellow's  foot  with  a 
feather,  he  will  draw  his  legs  up,  and  not  know  that  he  is  doing  it. 
That  is  from  an  independent  function  in  the  spinal  cord."  This 
very  simple  experiment  of  Sir  George  Burrows  is  quite  as  decisive 
as  that  of  M.  Bouillaud,  or  the  very  horrible  experiment  on  "  recur- 
rent sensibility  "  described  in  the  Handbook  for  the  Physiological 
Laboratory.       n 

The  truth  is,  that  no  experiments  at  all  are  needed  for  demon- 
strating the  processes  of  reflex  action,  nor  do  they  help  towards 
applying  the  knowledge  to  practice,  although  this  assertion  is  made. 
So  far  from  leading  to  improved  treatment  of  epilepsy,  or  other 
diseases  supposed  to  be  chiefly  dependent  on  the  spinal  cord,  the 
ill-digested  knowledge  of  what  Marshall  Hall  really  did  and  taught 
has  led  to  stupid  routine,  and  contracted  views  of  maladies  which 
require  most  intelligent  and  varied  treatment.  This  depends,  in 
every  individual  case,  upon  conditions  only  to  be  ascertained  by 
careful  observation,  or  what  Marshall  Hall  himself  calls  "living 
pathology."  Apart  from  his  experiments,  no  medical  writer  gives 
more  shrewd  and  instructive  remarks  on  the  diagnosis  and  treat- 
ment of  epileptic  and  other  nervous  diseases ;  but  these  are  over- 
looked in  the  anxiety  to  quote  his  experiments  in  support  of  vivisec- 
tion. It  is  not  the  multiplication  of  details  about  the  nervous 
system  that  is  wanted,  but  the  wise  interpretation  of  facts  ancj 
phenomena  already  familiar. 

So  much  has  been  said  about  reflex  action  that  I  have  dwelt 
longer  on  the  point  than  there  was  really  occasion.  With  regard 
to  other  therapeutic  or  practical  benefits,  connected  with  or  said  to 
have  arisen  from  experiments  on  living  animals,  the  only  one  calling 
for  distinct  notice  is  "  the  abandonment  of  the  operation  of  cutting 
the  fifth  pair  for  neuralgia."  If  this  was  often  practiced  one  would 
suppose  that  the  inefficiency  of  the  remedy  would  be  ascertained  by 


30  VIVISECTION. 

a  few  operations.*  But  this  statement  is  intended  to  convey  the  idea 
of  numbers  of  people  remaining  with  distracting  pain  and  distorted 
faces,  till  vivisectors  advised  surgeons  to  abandon  the  operation ! 

With  regard  to  the  alleged  discovery  of  the  functions  of  the 
several  parts  of  the  encephalon,  to  the  experimental  investigations 
of  which  some  hundreds  of  physiologists  have  devoted  much  labor, 
there  are  very  few  results  universally  accepted.  If  we  include 
articles  and  reports  in  medical  and  scientific  journals,  as  well  as 
treatises  separately  published,  we  have  a  huge  library  describing 
such  investigations,  but  the  conclusions  arrived  at  would  not  fill 
one  octavo  page.  There  is  not  a  subject  in  the  whole  range  of 
research  about  which  there  are  so  many  vague  and  so  many  contra- 
dictory statements.  The  most  recent  experimenters  seem  to  be 
going  over  the  same  dreary  and  dismal  ground  as  their  predecessors. 
Very  few  who  are  not  specialists  in  physiological  literature  can 
verify  this  assertion,  which  I  make  after  comparing  the  reports  of 
contemporary  vivisectors,  with  those  of  Longet,Bouillaud,Legallois, 
Magendie,  and  Fleurens.  In  fact,  some  of  the  earlier  physiologists, 
especially  Tiedemann  and  Serres,  can  show  results  far  more  worthy 
of  attention  than  the  modern  vivisectors  of  France  and  Germany, 
with  all  the  superior  advantages  these  possess  in  the  use  of  anaes- 
thetics, and  in  the  appliances  of  laboratories,  such  as  those  of 
Ludwig,  of  Leipzig;  M filler,  of  Berlin;  and  Pfluger,  of  Bonn. 
The  earlier  vivisectors  gave  due  prominence  to  results  obtained 
from  pathology  and  from  comparative  anatomy,  and  did  not 
maintain,  like  our  modern  physiologists  of  the  vivisection  school, 
that  "  the  whole  knowledge  of  the  animal  system  is  derived  from 
experiments  on  living  animals." 

This  was  said  in  evidence  repeatedly,  with  slight  variation  of 
phrase,  by  the  advocates  of  vivisection  before  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion. So  far  from  such  being  the  case,  the  remark  of  Bowman,  in 
his  standard  work  on  Physiology,  commends  itself  to  every  unbiased 
mind  as  true,  "  Vivisections  upon  so  complex  an  organ  as  the  brain 
are  ill-calculated  to  lead  to  useful  or  satisfactory  results."  This  is 
the  same  conclusion  at  which  Dr.  Pritchard  arrived  when  he  said 
that "  the  results  obtained  by  experiments  not  only  differ  from  each 

*  "  Experience  has  proved  that  the  relief,  if  any,  is  but  partial  and  temporary, 
and  that  the  operation  may,  in  fact,  be  the  means  of  converting  simple  neuralgia 
into  irremediable  structural  disease." — Miller's  "Surgery." 


IS    IT   USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  31 

other  in  essential  respects,  but  are  completely  opposed  to  those 
deduced  from  the  minute  and  accurate  observation  of  pathological 
facts." 

The  next  discoveries  (8,  9)  include  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
and  the  various  researches  as  to  the  force  of  the  heart,  the  velocity 
of  the  blood,  and  kindred  subjects.  Of  Harvey's  discovery,  and 
the  proportion  borne  by  vivisection  in  it,  enough  has  been  said.  As 
to  the  experiments  on  the  statics  and  dynamics  of  the  circulation, 
from  those  of  Hales  to  those  of  Ludwig,  no  doubt  many  facts  have 
been  ascertained  and  recorded,  as  is  the  case  with  all  experiments, 
but  no  new  or  practical  results  appear  "  for  the  benefit  of  humanity." 
As  to  the  absolute  force  of  the  heart  considered  as  a  hydraulic 
machine,  and  the  velocity  of  the  blood,  the  results  of  experiment 
vary  much,  and  those  of  old  Stephen  Hales  give  probably  as  near 
an  average  estimate  as  can  be  expected.  But  for  practical  applica- 
tion in  medicine  the  numerous  experiments  made  since  the  time  of 
Hales  are  quite  useless.  The  force  of  the  heart,  for  example,  varies 
in  the  animals  inspected,  and  under  different  conditions;  and  the 
variations  are  infinite  in  different  persons,  in  various  conditions  of  age, 
strength,  and  state  of  health.  The  general  estimates  may  be  interest- 
ing as  facts  for  philosophical  statement,  but  are  useless  with  any  view 
of  applying  such  experiments  to  use,  in  maladies  either  of  the  san- 
guineous or  nervous  system.  More  useful  information  can  be  ob- 
tained by  observing  the  force  of  the  heart  as  indicated  on  the  delicate 
dial  of  a  balance  chair,  than  from  all  the  experiments  of  vivisectors. 

From  numbers  10  to  14  of  Dr.  M'Kendrick's  list,  the  discoveries 

»  ascribed  to  vivisection  need  only  to  be  named  to  show  how  futile 
are  the  claims.  No  painful  experiments  on  animals  were  required 
to  prove  that  atmospheric  air  is  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of 
life ;  nor  that  atmospheric  air,  by  continued  breathing,  becomes 
vitiated  and  unfit  for  respiration;  nor  that  it  is  diminished  in 
volume  by  respiration;  nor  to  show  the  relation  of  animal 
and  vegetable  life  in  regard  to  the  condition  of  the  atmosphere. 
All  these  discoveries  belong  to  chemistry,  and  were  ascertained  and 
proved  by  facts  and  occurrences  in  common  life,  and  observed  in 
ordinary  course  of  scientific  investigation.  The  sad  tragedy  of  the 
Black  Hole  at  Calcutta,  and  the  frequent  calamities  from  "choke 

I  damp  "  in  mines,  proved  the  effects  of  vitiated  air,  without  the 
stupid  demonstration  of  throwing  dogs  into  the  grotte  del  cane,  far 


32  VIVISECTION. 

less  of  "  experiments  "  by  physiologists.  When  the  interpretation 
of  these  facts  was  given,  by  the  discoveries  of  Priestley  and  Lavoi- 
sier, it  was  a  triumph  of  chemical,  not  of  physiological  science,  and 
entirely  apart  from  vivisection. 

The  physiology  of  digestion  comes  next  (15).  Numerous  experi- 
ments have  been  made  by  Schwann,  Bernard,  and  other  vivisectors; 
but  all  the  facts  demonstrated  by  them,  and  many  more,  could  have 
been  ascertained  by  simple  observation,  without  vivisections.  If 
the  French  physiologists  had  taken  the  trouble  to  attend  at  the 
Parisian  Abattoirs,  they  could  have  "  experimented "  and  made 
observations  on  animals  necessarily  doomed  to  death,  without 
injuring  and  destroying  needless  victims  in  their  laboratories.  And 
even  in  the  living  human  subject  opportunities  have  occurred  of 
ascertaining  all  the  processes  of  digestion,  for  which  cruel  vivisec- 
tion of  animals  has  been  performed.  By  such  experiments,  in 
unnatural  conditions  of  animals,  no  practical  or  useful  light  can  be 
thrown  on  the  natural  processes  of  human  digestion,  in  all  its 
varieties  and  idiosyncracies.  Abernethy,  from  observation  and 
experience,  knew  more  about  digestion,  and  used  his  knowledge  for 
the  benefit  of  humanity,  more  successfully  than  all  the  vivisectors, 
whose  practices  he  opposed  and  denounced. 

With  regard  to  the  function  of  the  lacteals,  a  few  careful  and  well- 
directed  observations,  at  the  Abattoirs,  or  at  any  ordinary  butcher's 
slaughter-house,  would  have  served  the  same  purpose  as  all  the 
experiments  needlessly  performed  in  the  laboratories  of  Colin, 
Bernard,  and  Ludwig.  Anatomy  had  long  before  shown  the 
structure  and  course  of  these  vessels,  and  their  use  in  regard  to 
nutrition  was  well  known  to  physiologists.  In  the  Museum  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  of  London,  there  is  a  remarkable  series 
of  preparations,  exhibiting  to  anatomists  the  lacteals  and  the 
lymphatic  vessels,  and  the  absorbent  vessels  of  the  digestive  system, 
injected  with  size,  and  vermilion,  and  mercury.  No  new  demon- 
strations were  needed  for  anatomical  knowledge ;  and  no  new 
experiments  were  needed  for  the  advancement  of  medical  practice. 
Yet  this  is  one  of  three  notable  instances  which  the  Royal  Com- 
missioners, in  their  Report,  describe  as  having  been  "  selected  for 
them"  by  Professor  Turner,  of  Edinburgh,  "in  illustration  of  the 
extent  to  which  practical  medicine  has  been  improved  by  physio- 
logical experiment "  (p.  13). 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  33 

The  other  two  notable  instances  are,  "the  discovery  of  the  circu- 
lation of  the  blood  "  and  "  Sir  Charles  Bell's  discovery  of  the  com- 
pound function  of  the  spinal  nerves."  How  far  vivisection  was 
necessary  for  these  the  reader  is  now  prepared  to  judge.  It  is  well 
that,  in  another  part  of  their  official  Report,  the  Commissioners 
say,  "  We  have  not  thought  it  part  of  our  duty,  the  majority  of  us4 
not  having  had  professional  training,  to  decide  upon  matters  of 
diifering  professional  opinion,  but  we  have  been  much  struck  by  the 
consideration  that  severe  experiments  have  been  engaged  in  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  results  which  have  been  considered  inade- 
quate to  justify  that  severity,  by  persons  of  very  competent  authority. 
Cases  may  not  improbably  arise,  in  future,  in  which  the  physiologist 
may  be  disposed  to  underrate  the  pain  inflicted  in  the  course  of 
establishing  results  which  may  prove  to  be  trivial  or  even  worthless." 
Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  may  be  regarded  as  not  a  person  of  competent 
authority,  but  it  is  curious  that  he  refers  to  this  very  instance  of 
the  functions  of  the  lacteals  in  his  celebrated  paper  against  vivisec- 
tion {Idler,  No.  17).  "  I  know  not  that  by  living  dissections  any 
discovery  has  been  made,  by  which  a  single  malady  is  more 
easily  cured.  And  if  the  knowledge  of  physiology  has  been  some- 
what increased,  he  surely  buys  knowledge  dear  who  learns  the  use 
of  the  lacteals  at  the  expense  of  his  own  humanity.  It  is  time  that 
universal  resentment  should  arise  against  those  horrid  operations, 
which  tend  to  harden  the  heart  and  make  the  physician  more 
dreadful  than  the  gout  or  the  stone."  Dr.  Johnson  was,  at  that 
time,  the  friend  and  associate  of  the  highest  men  in  the  medical 
profession,  and  would  not  have  thus  written  if  they  approved  of 
vivisection. 

The  discovery  of  the  action  of  light  on  the  retina  (20)  we  might 
naturally  expect  to  find  in  Dr.  M'Kendrick's  list,  having  himself 
contributed  some  experiments  for  its  illustration.  But  there  are 
few  who  would  admit  that  practical  knowledge  on  this  subject 
depended  on  vivisection,  any  more  than  "the  discoveries  of  the 
whole  series  of  facts  in  the  domain  of  electro-physiology."  These 
discoveries  may  have  "  important  practical  bearings,"  but  the  prin- 
ciples on  which  the  practice  rests  were  the  result  of  scientific 
observation,  and  of  researches  in  which  vivisection  gave  no  essen- 
tial aid  (22). 

The  only  remaining  discovery  is  that  of  the  glycogenic  function 

B* 


34  VIVISECTION. 

of  the  liver  (21).  This  has  been  much  vaunted  as  an  important 
contribution  to  physiological  knowledge, applicable  to  improvement 
in  medical  practice.  Mr.  Erichsen,  as  spokesman  of  the  Commis- 
sioners, made  the  most  of  it  in  taking  the  evidence  of  Professor 
Turner.  "  In  diabetes  it  was  supposed,  not  many  years  ago,  that 
the  sugar  was  formed  in  the  kidneys  ;  it  is  now  known  by  physio- 
logical experiment  that  the  sugar  may  be  produced  by  a  lesion  of 
the  nervous  system.  Claude  Bernard  has  shown  that,  if  a  certain 
portion  of  the  brain  is  injured,  you  get  sugar  in  the  urine;  that  the 
sugar  has  nothing  more  to  do  with  the  kidney,  and  is  no  more  a 
kidney  disease,  in  point  of  fact,  than  the  purulent  expectoration  in 
a  consumptive  patient  has  to  do  with  the  mouth  ;  that  the  kidney 
merely  evolves  it  from  the  system,  just  as  the  mouth  ejects  the 
purulent  matter  from  the  lungs?"  To  which  Professor  Turner 
replied,  "That  is  the  case"  (3126).  Mr.  Erichsen's  question  was 
evidently  framed  for  the  instruction  of  his  non-professional  col- 
leagues of  the  Commission. 

The  analogy  suggested  between  the  expulsion  of  diabetic  sugar 
by  the  kidney  and  of  purulent  sputa  by  the  mouth  was  rather  a 
strong  figure  of  speech ;  but,  passing  this,  it  was  scarcely  right  of 
Mr.  Erichsen  and  Mr.  Turner  to  make  the  Commissioners  suppose 
that  "  not  many  years  ago  sugar  was  believed  to  be  formed  in  the 
kidneys."  As  long  ago  as  the  time  of  Dr.  Mead,  that  distinguished 
physician  ascribed  the  diabetic  urine  to  a  morbid  state  of  the  liver 
and  bile.  A  century  ago  Dr.  Cullen  taught  that  the  morbid  state 
of  the  urine  arose  from  the  disorder  of  the  nutritive  and  assimilative 
functions  connected  with  the  digestive  system.  This  was  received 
by  the  profession  generally ;  and  the  melituria  was  understood  to 
indicate  an  abnormal  result  of  animal  chemistry,  one  process  of 
which,  in  natural  health,  was  the  production  of  sugar.  What 
Bernard  showed  was,  that  the  formation  of  sugar  in  the  liver  in  the 
normal  state  is  so  constant  that  the  liver  may  be  regarded  as  the 
sugar-producing  organ.  He  demonstrated  this  by  numerous 
observations,  especially  by  examining  the  livers  of  seven  recently- 
dead  human  subjects.  Five  of  these  were  executed  criminals.  In 
three  healthy  livers  he  determined  the  absolute  weight  of  sugar, 
finding  an  average  of  22.03  grammes;  while,  in  the  liver  of  a 
diabetic  subject,  where  death  was  sudden,  from  pulmonary 
apoplexy,  the  amount  of  sugar  was  57.50,  or  more  than  double. 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR    JUSTIFIABLE?  35 

The  glycogenic  function  of  the  liver  was  thus  demonstrated  in  a 
legitimate  way;  and  in  the  Abattoirs  he  could  have  performed  any 
number  of  post-mortem  experiments,  if  confirmation  or  further 
elucidation  were  desired. 

But,  unhappily,  Bernard  showed  the  way  to  experimenting  on 
living  animals.  Pie  found  that,  by  pricking  or  piercing  the  floor 
of  the  fourth  ventricle  of  the  brain,  he  could  increase  the  saccharine 
secretion  in  the  liver.  In  this  line  of  experimentation  he  has  been 
followed  by  many  physiologists,  especially  by  Brunton,  Pavy, 
Ferrier,  and  Schiff.  In  reviewing  these  experiments,  many  of 
which  have  been  painful  and  destructive  of  life,  I  find  most  con- 
fused and  variable  results.  Those  results  which  seem  the  most 
certain  are  such  as  might  be  anticipated  from  the  slightest  consid- 
eration of  physiological  principles.  Thus,  it  is  announced  that  the 
activity  of  the  glycogenic  function  is  increased  with  an  augmented 
flow  of  blood  to  the  liver,  such  as  takes  place  a  few  hours  after  a 
meal.  On  the  other  hand,  when  animals  were  starved — as  by  Dr. 
Brunton  with  rabbits,  or  by  Dr.  Wickham  Legg  by  tying  the  bile 
ducts  of  cats — no  irritation  of  the  fourth  ventricle  will  cause 
glycogen  to  appear  in  the  liver  or  the  urine.  Schiff  produced 
diabetes  by  division  of  the  anterior  columns  of  the  spinal  cord. 
Dr.  Pavy  had  the  same  result,  by  dividing  the  superior  cervical 
ganglion  of  the  great  sympathetic;  but  this  lesion  also  caused 
inflammation  of  the  lung,  or  pleurisy,  so  that  the  animals  could 
not  be  observed  for  long  periods,  as  Schiff  in  some  cases  did. 

Now,  all  these  experiments  go  no  further  than  to  show  that  the 
normal  secretion  of  sugar  depends  on  healthy  action  of  the  organs 
engaged  in  nutrition  ;  while  unnatural  interference  with  the  actions 
of  these  organs,  especially  by  lesion  of  the  nervous  centres  by  which 
their  action  is  sustained,  produces  abnormal  secretion  of  sugar,  and 
diabetes.  This  multitude  of  experiments  I  regard  as  unjustifiable 
and  needless  cruelties,  and  leading  to  no  useful  result. 

Having  thus  examined  all  the  22  alleged  discoveries,  claimed  as 
due  to  experimental  research,  I  must  leave  the  reader  to  judge 
whether  vivisection  is  "  the  main  source  of  our  knowledge  of 
physiology." 

A  separate  list  is  given  of  results  "  in  aid  of  medicine."  If  the 
testimony  of  physicians  of  the  highest  rank  in  the  profession  is 
accepted,  their  verdict  is  against  the  alleged  benefits  of  vivisection 


36  VIVISECTION. 

in  the  practice  of  the  healing  art.  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson  did  not 
even  allude  to  it,  in  enumerating  the  causes  of  the  advancement  of 
medicine  and  surgery  during  the  last  half  century.  Professor 
Newman  says :  "  I  can  attest  that  Dr.  James  Cowles  Prichard 
assured  me  that  vivisection  had  added  nothing  whatever  to  the 
physician's  power  of  healing."  When  Sir  Thomas  Watson  was 
giving  evidence  before  the  Royal  Commission,  the  question  was 
asked:  "Although  you  have  never  performed  any  experiments,  nor 
witnessed  them,  you  have  used  the  results  of  the  experiments  of 
others,  have  you  not,  as  the  basis  for  the  advancement  of  your 
professional  knowledge  ?  "  The  answer  was :  "  I  have  made  myself 
acquainted  with  the  experiments  and  their  results,  and  have  turned 
them  to  such  uses  as  I  could."  Of  this  reply  Mr.  Macilwain,  him- 
self a  distinguished  and  experienced  surgeon,  in  reviewing  the 
evidence,  says:  "Could  any  answer  convey  a  more  measured 
recognition  of  a  mode  of  study,  in  reply  to  the  question  whether  he 
had  not  made  it  a  basis  for  the  advancement  of  his  professional 
knowledge?  Could  anything  be  more  vague  or  unsatisfactory? 
Why  was  so  experienced  a  witness  not  requested  to  favor  the  Com- 
mission with  some  of  the  details  of  so  vast  an  experience?  Why 
was  he  not  requested  to  state  in  what  cases  he  had  turned  it  to 
account,  and  how  far  it  had  or  had  not  answered  his  expecta- 
tions ?  " 

The  truth  is,  that  the  question  was  put  apparently  for  the  sake 
of  the  lay  members  of  the  Commission,  and  for  the  non-professional 
readers  of  the  Blue  Book.  It  was  intended  to  suggest  that  vivi- 
section had  been  the  source  of  improvements,  if  not  of  an  entire 
reform  of  practice,  in  thus  speaking  of  it  as  the  basis  of  advance  in 
professional  knowledge.  The  interrogator  knew  too  well,  however, 
how  imprudent  it  would  be  to  follow  up  the  tentative  question. 
To  have  asked  for  details  or  examples  would  have  exposed  the 
futility  of  the  claims  of  the  vivisectionists  to  have  amended  or 
altered  medical  practice.  Where  attempts  have  been  made  to  give 
details,  the  examples  are  not  only  few,  but  they  lead  at  once  back 
to  the  very  matter  under  dispute,  whether  the  knowledge  on  which 
the  practice  rests  came  from  vivisection  or  from  legitimate  methods 
of  research. 

On  the  article  in  the  Bi'itish  Medical  Journal,  already  quoted, 
entitled    "  What  has  Vivisection  done  for  Humanity?"    the   fol- 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  37 

lowing  are  the  examples  given,  under  the  head  of  benefits,  in 
" advancing  therapeutics,  relief  of  pain,"  etc.: — 1.  Use  of  ether. 
2.  Use  of  chloroform.  3.  Chloral  discovered  experimentally  by 
Liebreich.  4.  The  action  of  all  remedies  are  only  definitely  ascer- 
tained by  experiments  on  animals.  5.  Action  of  Calabar  Bean  by 
Eraser.  6.  Antagonism  between  active  substances  and  the  study 
of  antidotes. — Many  observers. 

Could  there  be  a  more  meagre  and  more  misleading  set  of 
examples?  The  practical  use  of  anaesthetics  would  have  been 
introduced  and  perfected  if  a  single  experiment  on  an  inferior 
animal  had  never  been  made.  The  action  of  remedies  on  the  human 
body  can  only  be  definitely  ascertained  by  observation,  and  experi- 
ments on  animals  are  more  likely  to  mislead  than  to  assist  in  gaining 
this  definite  knowledge.  The  action  of  some  substances,  such  as 
antimony  on  horses  and  mercury  on  dogs,  is  widely  different  from 
their  action  on  the  human  subject;  and  the  effects,  both  of  remedies 
and  of  poisons,  vary  much  in  the  different  animals  experimented 
on.  Dr.  Thorowgood  says  he  has  seen  opium  given  to  a  pigeon, 
enough  to  kill  a  strong  man,  without  any  effect.  Goats  have  been 
known  to  browse  on  tobacco  leaves,  and  rabbits  on  belladonna,  with- 
out harm.  Many  such  anomalies  have  been  observed,  and  the  only 
certain  knowledge  of  the  influence  of  substances  on  the  human 
subject  must  be  obtained  by  observation  of  cases  in  private  or  in 
hospital  practice. 

In  the  debate  on  Lord  Truro's  "Cruelty  to  Animals"  Bill,  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  Earl  Beauchamp  adduced  the  fact  that  each 
year  20j000  human  beings  lost  their  lives  from  snake-bites,  and 
asked  if  a  cure  for  snake-bites  would  not  be  a  discovery  of  vast 
importance.  He  intended  to  convey  to  their  lordships  the  idea  that 
vivisection  can  make  this  discovery.  Multitudes  of  experiments 
have  already  been  made  without  result.  Even  if  an  antidote 
should  appear  to  have  some  influence  on  the  animal  operated  upon, 
the  result  might  be  different  in  the  human  subject.  The  only 
possible  way  of  testing  alleged  antidotes — and  the  natives  of  different 
regions  profess  to  know  this — is  to  apply  them  in  actual  cases  of 
snake-bite.  For  such  there  must  be  frequent  opportunity,  if  20,000 
cases  occur  yearly.  These  are  experiments  which  can  do  no  harm, 
and  might  lead  to  discovery  of  cure.  The  poisoning  of  animals  in 
order  to  try  possible  remedies  is  a  needless  system  of  cruel  experiment. 


38  VIVISECTION. 

The  "  action  of  the  Calabar  Bean,"  the  only  distinct  example 
specified,  is  no  argument  to  adduce  in  such  a  discussion.  It  was 
reported  to  be  a  very  dangerous  poison,  and  Sir  Robert  Christison 
determined  to  try  its  effect  upon  himself — a  very  fair  "  experiment 
on  a  living  animal ; "  as  was  that  of  Sir  James  Simpson  and  Dr. 
Keith  in  testing  the  effect  of  chloroform  as  an  anaesthetic.  Of 
course,  Sir  Robert  Christison  proceeded  with  extreme  caution,  and 
apportioned  the  dose  with  much  care,  finding  the  effects  such  as 
had  been  reported  by  the  missionaries  in  Africa.  He  then  remitted 
the  further  examination  to  his  assistant,  Dr.  Fraser,  who,  in  course 
of  experiments,  noticed  the  remarkable  effects  of  the  bean  on  the 
pupil.  With  due  caution,  as  in  Sir  Robert  Christison's  case,  this 
effect  might  have  been  more  certainly  and  directly  observed  in  the 
human  subject,  and  with  no  more  danger  or  inconvenience  than  with 
other  poisonous  substances  which,  in  minute  quantities,  are  used  as 
medicines.  At  all  events,  it  is  trifling  with  the  question  to  single 
out  this  physiological  fact  as  an  example  of  the  improvements  in 
medical  practice  due  to  vivisection !  A  stronger  example  would 
have  been  the  action  of  Laburnum  Bark.  In  a  case  of  suspected 
poisoning  with  this  substance,  some  trials  by  Christison  on  animals 
were  thought  necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  jury,  just  as  the 
performance  of  vivisections  was  undertaken  by  Sir  Charles  Bell  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  Council  of  the  Royal  Society. 

Passing  from  poisons,  in  regard  to  which  some  of  the  most 
plausible  apologies  for  experiments  have  been  urged,  other  pleas 
put  forth  in  the  British  Medical  Journal  are  scarcely  worthy  of 
reply  or  refutation.  It  is  said,  for  instance  (page  56,  Jan.  9, 
1875),  "  Without  vivisection-experiments,  we  would  know  almost 
nothing  of  the  phenomena  of  inflammation."  After  all  the  obser- 
vations of  physicians  and  surgeons,  of  physiologists  and  pathologists, 
for  successive  generations,  at  home  and  abroad,  we  are  told  to  look 
to  vivisectors  for  almost  all  our  knowledge  of  the  causes,  the 
symptoms,  and  the  results  of  inflammation  !  The  plea  is  prepos- 
terous, and  the  fact  of  it  being  seriously  put  forward  in  an  article 
specially  written  in  defence  of  vivisection  is  sufficient  to  show  the 
groundlessness  of  the  alleged  practical  benefits  of  this  method  of 
research. 

The  article  concludes  with  the  following  sentences,  the  mere 
quotation  of  which  will  suffice  to  show  the  inordinate  claims  and 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  39 

pretensions  of  vivisection: — "To  record  all  the  facts  given  to 
physiology  by  experiments  on  animals  would  simply  be  to  write  the 
history  of  the  science.  Therapeutics  is  yet  in  its  infancy;  but 
nearly  all  the  facts  definitely  known  regarding  the  actions  of  remedies 
have  been  gained  by  experiments  on  animals  !  To  stop  experiments 
on  animals  would  as  surely  arrest  the  progress  of  physiology, 
pathology  and  therapeutics,  as  an  edict  preventing  the  chemist  from 
the  use  of  the  retort,  test-tube,  acids,  and  alkalies,  would  arrest  the 
progress  of  chemistry."  On  reading  this,  I  wondered  what  would 
be  the  effect  of  such  an  assertion  in  the  minds  of  the  intelligent 
readers  of  the  British  Medical  Journal — of  those,  at  least,  outside 
the  circles  of  vivisectors,  and  their  advocates  or  apologists.  Have 
all  the  observations  of  clinical  medicine,  of  pathological  anatomy, 
of  pathological  histology,  and  pathological  chemistry  been  vain  and 
fruitless?  Have  all  the  labors  recorded  in  books  of  medicine  and 
surgery,  in  medical  reports  and  the  transactions  of  societies,  in 
practical  manuals  and  text-books,  and  in  our  official  pharmaco- 
poeias and  dispensatories,  been  delusive  and  misleading?  Almost 
the  whole  classic  literature  of  the  profession  belongs  to  a  time  when, 
in  England,  the  practice  of  vivisection  was  comparatively  unknown, 
and  when  its  results  were  regarded  with  doubt,  if  not  with  condem- 
nation. Have  all  the  generalizations  and  conclusions  of  past 
experience  been  superseded  by  the  results  of  this  new  method  of 
research  ?  Has  the  healing  art,  in  short,  beeu  wholly  revolutionized 
since  vivisectors  came  into  the  field?  The  official  reports  of  the 
Registrar-General,  the  pages  of  our  medical  journals,  the  case-books 
of  our  practitioners,  refute  the  claim.  Till  some  better  statement 
can  be  given  of  "  what  vivisection  has  done  for  humanity," 
respectable  medical  men  will  keep  to  the  old  paths — paths  of  honor, 
and  not  of  shame. 

Assuming,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  such  experiments  may 
have  been  of  scientific  value,  or  may  have  led  to  the  discovery  of 
scientific  facts  of  permanent  importance,  could  such  discoveries  not 
have  been  arrived  at  by  a  broad  and  comprehensive  study  of  natural 
phenomena,  or  of  those  quasi-natural  facts  which  are  the  continual 
accompaniments  of  civilization  ?  In  short,  could  not  observation 
have  sufficed,  without  experiment  on  living  animals? 

To  this  I  give  a  direct  answer,  so  far  as  physiology  is  concerned, 
in  the  words  of  the  great  Cuvier  :  "  Nature  has  supplied  the  oppor- 


40  VIVISECTION. 

Utilities  of  learning  that  which  experiments  on  the  living  body 
never  could  furnish.  It  presents  us,  in  the  different  classes  of 
animals,  with  nearly  all  possible  combinations  of  organs,  and  in  all 
proportions.  There  are  none  but  have  some  description  of  organs 
by  which  they  are  made  familiar  to  us;  and  it  only  is  needful  to 
examine  closely  the  effects  produced  by  these  combinations,  and  the 
results  of  their  partial  or  total  absence,  to  deduce  very  probable 
conclusions  as  to  the  nature  and  use  of  each  organ,  and  of  each  form 
of  organ  in  man." 

Another  eminent  physiologist,  Dr.  Carpenter,  says,  "  Almost  all 
our  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  life  must  be  derived  from  observation 
only.  Experimentation  can  conduct  us  very  little  farther  in  this 
inquiry.  The  ever-varying  forms  of  organized  beings  by  which 
we  are  surrounded,  and  the  constantly-changing  conditions  in  which 
they  exist,  present  us  with  such  numerous  and  different  combina- 
tions of  causes  and  effects,  that  it  must  be  the  fault  of  our  mode  of 
study,  if  we  do  not  arrive  at  some  tolerably  definite  conclusion  as 
to  their  mutual  relations."  Specially,  on  one  branch  of  experi- 
mental research,  engaging  a  large  share  of  attention  in  physiological 
laboratories,  Dr.  Carpenter  says :  "  On  such  subjects  as  the  functions 
of  the  different  parts  of  the  encephalon,  I  do  not  believe  that 
experiment  can  give  trustworthy  results ;  such  violence  to  one  part 
cannot  be  put  in  practice  without  functional  disturbance  of  the  rest. 
Here  I  consider  that  a  careful  anatomical  examination  of  the  pro- 
gressively complicated  forms  of  the  encephalon  from  fishes  up  to 
man — the  experiments  already  prepared  by  nature — is  far  more 
likely,  than  any  number  of  experiments,  to  elucidate  the  problem." 

No  clearer  statement  could  be  given  as  to  the  value  of  compara- 
tive anatomy  and  physiology,  or  observation  of  the  structure  and 
functions  of  the  organs  of  the  lower  animals,  in  the  study  of  human 
physiology.  I  may  add,  that  the  observation  of  abnormal  specimens 
of  the  human  body  is  also  capable  of  affording  conclusions  which 
experimenters  seek  to  arrive  at  by  their  painful  processes.  A 
careful  collection  and  arrangement  of  such  observations  would 
establish,  and  has  established,  many  facts  in  physiology  with  far 
greater  certainty  than  experiment  could  do.  In  truth,  the  observa- 
tion of  the  human  organs,  in  their  early  development  and  in  cases 
of  anomalous  growth,  affords  many  examples  of  "  experiments 
prepared  by  nature." 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  41 

Of  the  light  thrown  on  physiology  by  the  facts  and  laws  of  physical 
and  chemical  science,  it  is  needless  to  speak  in  detail.  Reference  is 
made  to  these  branches  of  science  in  this  place,  only  because  the 
advocates  of  experimental  physiology,  as  we  have  seen  in  examining 
Dr.  M'Kend  rick's  list  of  alleged  discoveries,  unfairly  adduce  facts 
of  natural  science  in  support  of  their  method  of  research. 

If  physiology  owes  much  to  comparative  anatomy,  and  also  to 
physics,  and  to  chemistry,  it  owes  much  to  pathology.  Along  with 
pathology  is  included  morbid  anatomy,  or  the  post-mortem  inspection 
of  structure,  for  investigation  of  the  results  of  diseased  action  in 
life.  When  the  writer  was  a  student  at  the  University  of  Edin- 
burgh, there  was  a  good  deal  of  discussion  about  vivisection,  then 
attracting  considerable  notice,  from  the  experiments  of  Magendie 
and  other  French  physiologists.  He  well  remembers  Dr.  Aber- 
crombie's  strongly-expressed  opinion  about  such  experiments,  and 
his  advice  to  depend  on  clinical  and  pathological  study  for  the 
knowledge  that  could  be  applied  in  the  practice  of  medicine. 
Having  had  his  attention  thus  early  directed  to  the  claims  of 
experiment,  as  compared  with  observation,  he  has  ever  since  watched 
the  progress  of  vivisection  ;  and  a  review  of  the  results  now,  after 
forty  years,  confirms  the  belief  that  Dr.  Abercrombie's  opinion  and 
advice  were  right.  And  certainly  not  the  least  injurious  influence 
of  the  present  rage  for  experimenting  is  its  tendency  to  withdraw 
attention  from  seeking  the  advancement  of  physiology,  as  well  as 
medicine,  through  clinical  and  pathological  study. 

Not  professed  biologists  and  physiologists  only,  but  men  in  high 
position,  as  physicians,  are  echoing  the  strange  and  novel  assertion, 
that  all  our  most  important  knowledge  and  improved  practice  is 
derived  from  experiments  on  living  animals.  The  experience  of 
medical  practitioners,  in  all  the  ages  which  are  now  called  pre- 
scientific,  is  depreciated,  and  we  are  told  to  expect  a  new  epoch  in 
the  healing  art.  But  the  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  I  admire 
the  courage  as  well  as  the  wisdom  of  M.  Nelaton,  the  distinguished 
surgeon,  who  professes  to  belong  to  the  "  pre-scientific "  school, 
and  declares,  in  opposition  to  the  loud  voice  of  present  opinion, 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  "  scientific  medicine,"  in  the  sense 
understood  by  Bernard  and  his  admirers ;  and  that  every  source 
of  information  is  delusive  which  is  not  derived  from  direct  observa- 
tion of  the  patient. 


42  VIVISECTION. 

Our  own  most  distinguished  surgeon,  the  late  Sir  William  Fer- 
gusson,  made  an  avowal  nearly  as  emphatic.  When  asked  if 
experiments  had  not  led  to  the  successful  treatment  of  complaints, 
or  the  mitigation  of  human  suffering,  he  replied  (Vivisection  Blue 
Book,  1049),  "  I  may,  perhaps,  speak  more  confidently  regarding 
surgery  than  any  other  departments  in  my  own  profession ;  and  in 
surgery  I  am  not  aware  of  any  of  these  experiments  on  the  lower 
animals  having  led  to  the  mitigation  of  pain,  or  to  improvement  as 
regards  surgical  details."  Being  asked  about  John  Hunter's 
experiments,  Sir  William  Fergusson  said,  that  "  Hunter's  first 
experiment,  if  it  might  be  so  called,  was  done  on  the  human  subject ; 
and  it  was  long  after  he  had  repeated  his  operation  on  the  human 
subject,  and  others  had  repeated  it,  that  the  fashion  of  tying  arteries 
and  experimenting  on  the  lower  animals  originated  or  was  devel- 
oped. He  had  himself  in  early  life  performed  such  experiments, 
influenced  by  what  others  had  done,  and  by  the  wish  to  come  up  to 
what  they  had  done  in  such  matters;  but  the  more  matured  judg- 
ment of  later  years  would  not  allow  him  to  repeat  what  he  did  in 
earlier  days.  Neither  was  he  aware  that  any  very  expert  operator 
on  the  lower  animals  had  made  himself  thereby  an  expert  operator 
on  the  human  subject." 

Many  testimonies  of  a  similar  kind  could  be  cited  from  most 
eminent  physicians  and  surgeons.  The  only  reason  why  stronger 
opposition  to  vivisection  has  not  been  made  is  from  the  prevalence 
of  a  vague  idea  that  benefits  of  a  practical  kind  may  possibly  result 
from  increased  knowledge  of  physiological  facts  and  phenomena. 
It  is  forgotten,  meanwhile,  how  all  the  most  important  facts  capable 
of  being  applied  in  practice  are  already  set  down  in  books  on  the 
principles  of  medicine  and  surgery. 

Even  in  regard  to  pure  physiology,  the  study  of  diseased  action 
has  often  given  the  clue  to  the  discovery  of  the  function  of  organs. 
Physiology  has  learned  far  more  from  medical  practice  than  medical 
practice  can  ever  possibly  gain  from  experiments  on  the  lower 
animals.  It  was  the  study  of  diseases  of  the  brain  that  gave  the 
key  to  what  knowledge  we  possess  of  the  functions  of  the  parts  of 
the  encephalon.  It  was  by  observing  that  paralysis  of  one  side  of 
the  body  was  associated  with  certain  diseased  conditions  of  the 
opposite  side  of  the  brain,  that  the  singular  fact  was  established  as 
to  the  right  side  being  governed  by  the  left  side  of  the  brain,  and 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  43 

the  left  side  by  the  right  side  of  the  brain.  It  was  by  the  study  of 
diseased  conditions  and  their  results,  by  observing  symptoms,  and 
by  noting  the  pathological  appearances,  that  the  functions  of  the 
cerebral  hemispheres,  and  of  the  corpus  striatum,  and  of  the  optic 
thalamus,  and  other  parts  of  the  encephalon  were  ascertained.  The 
wild  exploration  of  structure  and  functions,  under  the  unnatural 
conditions  of  vivisection,  is  more  likely  to  retard  than  to  expedite 
the  knowledge  of  the  uses  and  relations  of  the  various  parts  of  the 
nervous  system.  In  our  homes  and  our  hospitals — not  in  physio- 
logical laboratories — we  must  study  the  human  frame,  in  health  and 
disease.  The  records  of  medical  observation  and  practice  contain 
boundless  materials  for  induction,  if  the  facts  were  carefully 
studied,  wisely  interpreted,  and  judiciously  applied.,  I  know  of 
no  instance  where  the  mode  of  inquiry,  by  observation  of  the  human 
system  in  health  and  disease,  has  retarded  the  dates  of  alleged 
discoveries  resulting  from  experiments  on  animals.  Some  new 
discoveries  will  be  claimed  in  the  future  as  they  have  been  in  the 
past.  But  these  experiments  are  so  liable  to  fallacy,  and  in  general 
so  contradictory,  that  they  cannot  be  used  as  guides  to  practice, 
until  the  facts  are  ascertained  by  scientific  and  professional 
observation. 

In  most  cases,  the  experiments  can  have  no  bearing  on  medical 
practice.  Professors  Hitzig  or  Ferrier  may  anticipate  wonderful 
results  from  connecting  glycogenic  function  of  the  liver  with  violent 
injury  of  the  brain  in  dogs;  but  no  rational  practitioner  would 
confine  his  treatment  of  diabetes  to  the  subduing  of  some  supposed 
cerebral  lesion. 

The  discovery  of  antidotes  to  poisons  is  the  most  plausible  ground 
on  which  the  danger  of  delay  in  research  can  be  pleaded.  So  far 
as  this  country  is  concerned,  and  in  the  experience  of  any  general 
practitioner,  ninety-nine  in  every  hundred  cases  of  poisoning,  and 
even  a  larger  proportion,  are  from  substances  with  which  we  are 
perfectly  familiar,  and  the  antidotes  to  which  are  well  known. 
Our  practice  in  all  these  cases  is  intelligently  guided  by  facts  of 
physiology  and  of  chemistry,  confirmed  by  general  experience.  In 
very  few  cases,  indeed,  are  specific  antidotes  known  for  poisons, 
and  if  any  are  proposed,  their  efficiency  must  be  proved  in  actual 
practice. 

Nor  is  it  by  experiments  on  animals  that  new  discoveries  are 


44  VIVISECTION. 

likely  to  be  made,  although  the  claim  is  urged — vainly,  as  we  have 
shown — for  this  origin  of  the  great  "  discovery  "  of  vaccination. 
If  any  parallel  discovery  is  made,  in  regard  to  other  fatal  diseases, 
it  will  be  by  "experiments"  on  the  human  body,  not  on  animals. 
Even  for  the  benefit  of  animals  themselves,  and  indirectly  for  the 
advantage  of  man  as  having  property  in  animals,  I  have  great 
doubt  as  to  such  experiments  being  ever  justifiable.  The  researches 
of  Dr.  Klein,  under  the  sanction  of  Mr.  Simon,  Medical  Officer  of 
the  Privy  Council,  and  assisted  by  grants  of  public  money,  I  con- 
sider wholly  unjustifiable.  To  produce,  artificially,  such  distressing 
diseases  as  typhoid  fever,  or  pyaemia,  in  sheep  or  cattle  is  a  bar- 
barous proceeding.  So  is  the  attempt  to  develope  tuberculous 
disease  in  dogs.  No  practical  advantage  can  be  gained  by  the  arti- 
ficial production  of  such  diseases  in  animals,  in  throwing  light 
either  on  their  nature  or  their  treatment  in  man. 

I  do  not  know  any  more  striking  example  of  the  futile  results  of 
experimental  inquiry  than  that  which  was  instituted  some  years 
ago  on  suspended  animation.  The  Royal  Humane  Society  had 
received  from  Dr.  Silvester,  and  other  medical  men,  various  sug- 
gestions as  to  the  best  mode  of  treating  persons  apparently  drowned. 
The  Committee  referred  the  proposals  to  the  Royal  Medical  and 
Chirurgical  Society,  with  a  request  for  advice.  A  committee  of 
investigation  was  appointed  by  the  Royal  Medical  and  Chirurgical 
Society,  consisting  of  the  following  members: — C.  J.  B.  Williams, 
M.D.,  f.r.s.;  C.  E.  Brown-Sequard,  m.d.,  f.r.s.;  George  Harley, 
m.d.;  W.  S.  Kirkes,  M.D.;  H.  Hyde  Salter,  m.d.,  f.r.s.;  J. 
Burdon-Sanderson,  m.d.;  W.  S.  Savory,  f.r.s.;  and  E.  H.  Sieve- 
king,  M.D. 

Now,  here  was  a  clear  and  well-defined  object  of  inquiry  :  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  instituted  was  practical  and  beneficent ; 
the  investigators  were  men  of  science,  able  and  experienced. 
Here,  if  anywhere,  clear  and  satisfactory  results  might  be  looked 
for. 

In  pursuing  the  inquiry,  a  large  number  of  experiments  were 
made  upon  living  animals.  In  the  first  place,  the  phenomena  of 
apnoea,  in  its  least  complicated  form,  were  investigated — viz.,  when 
produced  by  simply  depriving  the  animal  of  air.  Tracheotomy 
was  performed  upon  animals  fastened  down  to  a  table  on  their 
backs,  and  glass  tubes  inserted,  and  secured  firmly  by  ligature. 


IS   IT  USEFUL   OR  JUSTIFIABLE?  45 

Through  a  tube  thus  inserted  the  animal  could  breathe  freely,  but 
the  air  could  be  at  once  and  effectively  cut  off  by  inserting  a  tightly- 
fitting  cork  into  the  upper  end  of  the  tube.  In  this  way  a  measure 
could  be  obtained  of  the  time  when  respiration  would  cease.  In 
order  to  observe  in  the  same  animals  the  duration  of  the  action  of 
the  heart,  long  pins  were  inserted  through  the  thoracic  walls  into 
some  part  of  the  ventricles.  The  movements  of  the  pin  indicated 
the  motion  of  the  heart,  after  the  cardiac  sounds  had  ceased  to  be 
audible.  The  conclusion  from  many  experiments  was  that,  in 
simple  apnoea,  the  action  of  the  heart  continued  a  considerable  time 
after  the  respiratory  movements  had  ceased ;  a  fact  well  known, 
and  needing  no  cruel  experiments  to  establish  it. 

In  dogs,  the  average  duration  of  the  respiratory  movements, 
after  the  plugging  of  the  tube,  was  4  minutes  5  seconds;  the 
extremes  being  3  minutes  30  seconds,  and  4  minutes  40  seconds. 
The  average  duration  of  the  heart's  action,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
7  minutes  11  seconds;  the  extremes  being  6  minutes  40  seconds, 
and  7  minutes  45  seconds. 

Another  series  of  experiments  led  to  the  conclusion,  that  a  dog 
may  be  deprived  of  fresh  supply  of  air  during  a  period  of  3  minutes 
50  seconds,  and  afterwards  recover  without  the  application  of 
artificial  means,  but  is  not  likely  to  recover  after  being  deprived  of 
air  for  4  minutes  10  seconds.  Experiments  were  also  made  in 
order  to  measure  the  force  of  the  respiratory  efforts  after  the  plug- 
ging of  the  glass  tube. 

Hitherto  nothiug  is  ascertained  except  that  the  action  of  the 
heart  continues  longer  than  that  of  the  lungs  in  suspended  anima- 
tion, and  that  the  death  struggles  in  victims  of  suffocation  vary  in 
duration  by  a  few  seconds.  On  proceeding  to  experiments  on 
drowning,  it  was  found  that  the  time  of  possible  recovery  of  dogs, 
after  immersion,  was  only  1  minute  30  seconds,  on  an  average, 
instead  of  4  minutes,  from  simple  deprivation  of  air.  "  To  what  is 
this  striking  difference  due  ?"  the  investigators  ask.  Experiments 
were  made  in  order  to  eliminate  from  the  inquiry  the  element  of 
struggling,  also  the  element  of  cold,  and,  lastly,  the  access  of  water 
to  the  lungs.  On  this  latter  point  it  was  found  that  a  dog  with  the 
windpipe  plugged  recovered  from  a  longer  submersion  than  a  dog 
without  the  windpipe  plugged.  The  conclusion  from  the  various 
experiments  on  immersion  was,  that  the  period  of  death  depended 


46  VIVISECTION. 

mainly  on  the  entrance  of  water  into  the  lungs.  Violent  respiratory 
efforts  hastened  this  fatal  result,  while  the  action  of  chloroform,  as 
diminishing  such  struggles,  retarded  death. 

Experiments  were  next  made  as  to  the  best  means  of  resuscita- 
tion, including  galvanism,  venesection,  cold  affusion,  actual  cautery, 
and  other  methods  ;  in  all  the  experiments  the  animals  being  suffo- 
cated in  the  usual  way  by  plugging  tlieir  windpipes.  None  of  the 
proposed  methods  obtained  any  support  from  the  experiments; 
which  failed  also  in  giving  any  conclusion  as  to  the  relative  value 
of  the  various  modes  of  artificial  respiration. 

In  presenting  their  report  to  the  Royal  Humane  Society,  the 
Royal  Medical  and  Chirurgical  Society  were  able  to  recommend  no 
practical  suggestions  as  the  result  of  their  inquiry.  Dr.  Edward 
Smith  gave  due  credit  for  the  extent  and  accuracy  of  the  facts 
reported,  the  care  with  which  they  had  been  ascertained,  and  the 
pains  taken  to  estimate  the  influence  of  disturbing  causes.  But  in 
reference  to  the  practical  object  in  the  appointment  of  the  Com- 
mittee, the  report,  he  said,  failed.  The  Committee  had  not  proved 
that  any  one  of  their  inquiries  was  applicable  to  the  human  subject. 
They  recorded  to  a  second  the  time  when  various  phenomena 
occurred  in  different  dogs,  some  surviving  longer  than  others,  and 
some  recovering  more  rapidly  than  others.  But  the  time  during 
which  different  men  could  be  immersed  and  recover  could  not  be 
proved  by  experiments  on  dogs,  and  the  Committee  had  shown  that 
all  their  plans  for  the  restoration  of  drowned  dogs  had  failed.  Dr. 
Webster  expressed  regret  that  so  much  suffering  had  been  inflicted, 
and  the  lives  of  so  many  dogs  sacrificed.  He  hoped  that  in  future 
experiments  on  living  animals  would  be  avoided. 

On  referring  to  the  Reports  of  the  Royal  Humane  Society,  and 
making  inquiry  from  its  officers,  I  learn  that  no  modifications  of 
the  method  of  restoring  suspended  animation  in  persons  apparently 
drowned  resulted  from  the  experimental  inquiry.  Any  slight 
modification  of  the  method  originally  introduced  to  the  Society  by 
Dr.  Silvester  has  arisen  out  of  observation  on  hvman  bodies,  and 
experience  in  their  treatment. 

Are  there  not  fallacies  underlying  such  a  method  of  interrogating 
Nature  which,  of  necessity,  vitiate  the  results?  A  clearer  and 
more  forcible  reply  to  this  question  could  not  be  given  than  in  the 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  47 

words  of  the  old  Roman  physician  and  writer  on  medicine,  Celsus  : 
"  It  is  alike  unprofitable  and  cruel/'  he  says,  "  to  lay  open  with  the 
knife  living  bodies,  so  that  the  art  which  is  designed  for  the  pro- 
tection and  relief  of  suffering  is  made  to  inflict  injury,  and  that  of 
the  most  atrocious  nature.  Of  the  things  sought  for  by  these  cruel 
practices,  some  are  altogether  beyond  the  reach  of  human  knowledge, 
and  others  could  be  ascertained  without  the  aid  of  such  wicked 
methods  of  research.  The  appearances  and  conditions  of  the  parts 
of  a  living  body  thus  examined  must  be  very  different  from  what 
they  are  in  their  natural  state.  If,  in  the  entire  and  uninjured 
body,  we  can  often,  by  external  observation,  perceive  remarkable 
changes,  produced  from  fear,  pain,  hunger,  weariness,  and  a  thousand 
other  affections,  how  much  greater  must  be  the  changes  induced  by 
the  dreadful  incisions  and  cruel  mangling  of  the  dissector,  in  inter- 
nal parts  whose  structure  is  far  more  delicate,  and  which  are  placed 
in  circumstances  altogether  unusual."  These  remarks  of  Celsus 
were  made  in  reference  to  the  inspection  of  the  living  bodies  of 
human  criminals,  who  were  handed  over  for  this  purpose  to  the 
"physiological  laboratories"  of  the  medical  school  of  Alexandria, 
and  probably  to  other  places  of  study.  The  objections  to  such 
researches,  so  strongly  urged  by  Celsus,  apply  with  double  force  to 
experiments  on  the  lower  animals,  where  the  differences  of  function 
and  of  structure  must  further  diminish  the  chance  of  light  being 
thrown  on  the  physiology  of  man  in  the  natural  condition. 

That  observations  made  by  vivisection  are  of  necessity  abnormal 
and  liable  to  fallacy,  reason  alone  might  show,  independently  of 
experience.  The  sources  of  error  arise  not  from  any  contingent 
cause,  but  from  the  very  nature  of  this  method  of  investigation. 
Nature,  when  interrogated,  reveals  only  what  is  her  condition  at 
the  moment  of  examination,  and  hence,  although  the  permanent 
and  unvarying  properties  of  inanimate  matter  renders  the  use  of 
experiment  of  paramount  value,  the  questioning  process  is  more 
limited,  and  its  results  more  uncertain,  when  applied  to  living  and 
sentient  beings.  We  cannot  depend  on  the  accuracy  of  conclusions 
respecting  the  normal  functions  of  parts,  if  drawn  from  experiments 
which  only  tell  what  takes  place  in  those  unnatural  conditions 
induced  by  operations.  For  not  only  are  the  ordinary  actions  of 
the  organs  thereby  often  deranged  or  destroyed,  but  many  causes 
conspire  to  render  still  wider  the  difference  between  the  observed 


48  VIVISECTION. 

and  the  natural  condition  of  the  subjects  operated  upon.  The 
deadening  of  pain  during  the  actual  use  of  the  knife  and  other 
instruments,  is  only  one  element  in  the  contrast,  although  chloro- 
form itself  in  many  cases  increases  the  sources  of  fallacy  and 
interferes  with  results.  The  excitement  and  terror  of  the  animal 
must  be  taken  into  account;  and  there  is  abnormal  action,  even 
if  the  body  be  made  insensible  and  unconscious.  "  I  do  not 
believe,"  says  Professor  Carpenter,  "  that  on  such  subjects  as 
the  functions  of  the  different  parts  of  the  encephalon,  experi- 
ments can  give  trustworthy  results;  since  violence  to  one  part 
cannot  be  put  in  practice  without  functional  disturbance  of  the 
rest." 

Experience  has  confirmed  these  reasonable  objections  to  experi- 
ments on  living  animals  as  necessarily  liable  to  f&llacy.  The  results 
obtained  by  different  experimenters  are  so  various,  and  often  so 
contradictory,  that  there  is  scarcely  a  single  position  laid  down  by 
them  that  can  with  confidence  be  adopted.  We  find  that  the  most 
opposite  results  occur  at  different  times  from  injury  of  the  same 
organs;  that  injury  of  different  organs  often  produce  the  same 
results;  and  that  the  same  experiments  are  not  followed  by  the 
same  results  in  different  subjects.  The  latter  remark  applies 
specially  to  poisons,  the  effects  of  which  show  remarkable  varia- 
tions in  different  animals.  I  think  that  the  true  value  of  these 
experimental  researches  was  rightly  estimated  by  Dr.  Pritchard, 
who,  in  his  work  on  insanity,  says  : — "  It  is  well  known  to  all  those 
who  have  paid  attention  to  the  recent  progress  of  physiology,  that 
attempts  have  been  made  to  ascertain  the  functions  of  the  different 
parts  of  the  brain  and  its  appendages  by  removing  successively 
parts  of  these  organs  from  living  animals,  and  noticing  the  changes 
which  ensued  in  their  actions  when  thus  mutilated.  The  most 
celebrated  of  these  was  the  series  of  experiments  instituted  by  M. 
Fleureus.  MM.  Magendie  and  Serres,  and  more  lately  Fodera 
and  Bouillaud,  have  occupied  themselves  with  similar  researches. 
The  results  obtained  from  these  experiments  not  only  differ  in 
essential  respects  from  each  other,  but  are  completely  opposed  to 
conclusions  deduced  from  inquiries  instituted  and  pursued  for 
several  years  on  a  different  path.  These  inquirers  are  disposed  to 
distrust  all  the  results  of  vivisection,  or  experiments  performed  by 
cutting  away  the  brains  of  living  animals.     The  method  of  research 


TS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  49 

which  they  have  pursued  is  that  of  minute  and  accurate  observa- 
tion of  pathological  facts." 

The  following  passage  occurs  in  the  work  of  the  late  Dr.  Bar- 
clay, the  founder  of  the  Museum  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons 
of  Edinburgh,  "On  the  Muscular  Motions,"  p.  298  :  "  In  making 
experiments  on  live  animals,  even,  when  the  species  of  respiration 
is  the  same  as  our  own,  anatomists  must  often  witness  phenomena 
that  can  be  phenomena  only  of  rare  occurrence.  After  considering 
that  the  actions  of  the  diaphragm,  in  ordinary  cases,  are  different 
from  its  actions  in  sneezing  and  coughing,  and  these  again  different 
from  its  actions  in  laughing  and  hiccup ;  after  considering  that  our 
breathing  is  varied  by  heat  and  cold,  by  pleasure  and  pain,  by 
every  strong  mental  emotion,  by  the  different  states  of  health  and 
disease,  by  different  attitudes  and  different  exertions, — we  can 
hardly  suppose  that  an  animal  under  the  influence  of  horror; 
placed  in  a  forced  and  unnatural  attitude;  its  viscera  exposed  to 
the  stimulus  of  air;  its  blood  flowing  out;  many  of  its  muscles 
divided  by  the  knife;  and  its  nervous  system  driven  to  violent 
desultory  action  from  excruciating  pain,  would  exhibit  the 
phenomena  of  ordinary  respiration.  In  that  situation  its  muscles 
must  produce  many  effects,  not  only  of  violent  but  irregular  action  ; 
and  not  only  the  muscles  usually  employed  in  performing  the 
function,  but  also  the  muscles  that  occasionally  are  required  to  act 
as  auxiliaries.  If  different  anatomists,  after  seeing  different  species 
of  animals  or  different  individuals  of  the  same  species  respiring 
under  different  experiments  of  torture,  were  each  to  conclude  that 
the  phenomena  produced  in  these  cases  were  analogous  to  those  of 
ordinary  respiration,  their  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  motions 
of  ordinary  respiration  would  be  immense." 

What  Dr.  Barclay  here  says  about  the  fallacies  inseparable  from 
experiments  on  respiration  will  apply  with  greater  force  to  other 
departments  of  physiology  which  have  been  investigated  in  a  similar 
manner. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  testimonies,  but  there  is  space  only 
to  add  the  statements  of  one  or  two  experimenters  who  have  them- 
selves admitted  the  uncertain  and  fallacious  nature  of  their  method 
of  research.  M.  Legallois  remarks  in  one  place,  of  his  "  Experi- 
ments on  the  influence  of  the  nervous  system  on  the  circulation  :  " 
"  J'eus  presque  autant  de  r^sultats  differens  que  d'  experiences ;  et 
c 


50  VIVISECTION. 

apres  bien  des  efforts  inutiles  pour  porter  la  lumiere  dans  cette 
tenebreuse  question,  je  pris  la  partie  de  l'abandonner  non  sans 
regret  d'y  avoir  sacrifie'  un  grand  nombre  d'  animaux,  et  perdu 
beaucoup  de  temps." 

The  experience  of  M.  Colin,  a  zealous  advocate  and  extensive 
practicer  of  vivisection,  is  worthy  of  being  noted.  "  Certain  experi- 
ments," he  says,  "are  complex  in  their  nature  when  they  are 
applied  to  important  functions,  the  perturbations  of  which  react  on 
nearly  the  whole  animal  economy.  Apply  your  instrument  to  the 
brain  or  the  heart,  and  immediately  you  have  general  and  serious 
disturbances  of  the  system  which  it  is  necessary  to  disengage  from 
those  which  belong  to  the  direct  and  local  result  of  the  experiment." 
And  again,  with  regard  to  the  uncertainty  of  the  results  obtained, 
M.  Colin  says  :  "  Often  the  same  experiment  repeated  twenty  times 
gives  twenty  different  results,  even  when  the  animals  are  placed 
apparently  in  the  same  conditions.  It  may  even  happen  that  the 
same  experiment  gives  contradictory  results."  M.  Colin,  after 
making  this  admission,  speaks  of  the  necessity  for  multiplying 
experiments  :  "  It  is  not  necessary  to  recommence  in  order  to  learn." 
The  fairer  and  more  philosophical  conclusion  would  be,  with  M. 
Legallois,  to  desist  from  a  mode  of  investigation  which  experience 
has  shown  to  be  unsatisfactory,  and  by  the  very  nature  of  it,  and 
of  necessity,  fallacious. 

Sir  Charles  Bell  said  that  "  Vivisection  has  done  more  to  per- 
petuate error  than  to  enforce  the  just  views  taken  from  anatomy 
and  the  natural  sciences."  He  said  this  chiefly  in  regard  to  the 
facts  and  principles  of  physiology.  But  the  accusation  holds  good 
also  as  to  the  practice  of  the  healing  art,  whether  in  medicine  or 
surgery.  Notable  illustration  of  this  has  been  given  by  Mr.  G. 
Macilwain,  F.E.c.s.,  in  a  recent  treatise  on  vivisection,  being  chiefly 
short  comments  on  portions  of  the  evidence  given  before  the  Royal 
Commission.  He  proposed  to  prove  to  the  Commission  that  experi- 
ments on  living  animals  were  not  only  useless  and  hindering  more 
philosophical  modes  of  research,  but  that  they  have  been  misleading, 
and  so  productive  of  great  practical  mischief  in  the  practice  of 
surgery.  He  was  not  allowed  to  do  this,  being  courteously  reminded 
that  he  was  not  before  a  medical  committee.  But  he  has  since 
published  what  he  intended  to  say,  and  his  statements  are  valuable 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  51 

testimonies  for  those  who  seek  to  know  the  truth  on  the  subject. 
Mr.  Macilwain  has  been  very  long  known  as  an  eminent  and  suc- 
cessful surgeon,  and  in  his  lectures  and  books  he  has  shown  himself 
to  possess  much  of  the  shrewd  insight  and  independent  thought  of 
his  great  master,  Mr.  Abernethy. 

The  two  illustrations  of  the  misleading  and  mischievous  influence 
of  experiments  on  living  animals  are  from  the  practice  and  the 
writings  of  Sir  Astley  Cooper  and  Mr.  Travers,  both  men  most 
popular  in  their  day,  and  whose  names  have  still  great  authority  in 
the  profession.  The  points  selected  by  Mr.  Macilwain  seem  to  him 
good  illustrations  of  the  faults  which  are  inseparable  from  vivisec- 
tional  inquiries. 

Sir  Astley  Cooper  thought  that  when  the  neck  of  the  thigh  bone 
was  fractured  within  the  capsule  enclosing  the  hip  joint,  repair  by 
bony  union  was  impracticable,  and  that  union  if  eifected  could  only 
be  by  ligament.  That  this  mode  of  union  was  frequent  after 
fracture  of  the  neck  of  the  femur,  he  knew,  but  ligamentous  union 
also  is  the  mode  of  repair  in  other  parts.  Nay,  more,  it  was  known 
that  sometimes  surgeons,  after  a  while,  purposely  allowed  some 
degree  of  motion  in  fractured  bones,  where  they  feared  that  the 
secretion  of  bone  might  be  in  inconvenient  excess,  and  where  liga- 
mentous union  took  place.  Besides,  he  knew  that  this  fracture 
took  place  most  commonly  in  persons  advanced  in  life,  when 
unusual  care  is  necessary  as  regards  the  utmost  quiet  of  the  limb, 
so  that  no  disturbance  should  occur  in  parts  which  it  was  essential 
to  keep  in  apposition,  and  that  various  circumstances  rendered  this, 
in  many  cases,  a  matter  of  no  small  difficulty.  Now,  all  this  might 
be  said  to  apply,  more  or  less,  to  fractures  in  general,  but  it  seems 
to  have  been  lost  sight  of  or  unappreciated  by  Sir  Astley.  He 
had  got  the  one  idea  of  deficient  reparative  power,  and  seems  to 
have  referred  failure  to  nothing  else.  Well,  to  prove  this,  as  he 
thought,  he  made  some  experiments  on  animals ;  and  here  is  another 
feature  common  in  vivisection.  A  supposition  is  started,  contrary 
to  or  irreconcileable  with  many  known  facts,  or  to  some  obvious 
analogy,  and  then  experiments  are  made,  to  see  if  it  is  true.  So 
that,  in  a  vast  number  of  cases,  a  man  commences  his  experiments, 
as  Sir  Astley  did,  with  the  disadvantage  of  a  foregone  conclusion. 
He  accordingly  experimented  on  dogs;  and  finding  that  the  frac- 
tures he  made  in  the  thighs  of  the  dogs  only  united  by  ligament,  he 


52  VIVISECTION. 

regarded  that  as  a  confirmation  of  his  doctrine.  "  Now,"  says  Mr. 
Macilwain,  "  I  will  venture  to  affirm  that  not  one  of  the  circum- 
stances necessary  to  the  proper  repair  of  the  fractured  neck  of  the 
thigh  bone  in  the  human  subject  could  be  accomplished  in  the  dog, 
and  especially  that  chief  of  all,  the  continually  undisturbed  condi- 
tion of  the  injured  parts.  But  many  surgeons,  both  here  and  on 
the  Continent,  took  another  view  of  the  subject,  and  maintained 
that  if  the  parts  were  kept  perfectly  still,  and  so  retained  for  the 
requisite  time,  the  fractured  neck  of  the  thigh-bone  would  do  just 
as  well  as  others.  Amongst  these  were  Mr.  Abernethy  and  Baron 
Larrey.  Cases  were  successful,  but  were  for  a  time  met  by  the  alle- 
gation that  the  fractures  were  outside  or  partially  outside  the  capsule 
of  the  joint.  As  this  could  not  be  proved  or  disproved  but  by 
dissection,  years  passed  during  which  the  subject  was  matter  of 
opinion.  At  length  two  or  three  cases  occurred  where  opportunity 
was  given  to  examine  the  joint  after  death,  and  the  bony  union  of 
the  fracture  was  fully  established.  But  much  evil  had  been  done. 
Sir  Astley  was  surgeon  to  one  of  the  largest  hospitals,  and  a  leading 
teacher  of  surgery.  Concluding  that  bony  union  could  not  be 
obtained  in  such  cases,  he  recommended  and  adopted  a  practice 
which  rendered  it  impossible.  When  the  patient  had  been  in  bed 
a  fortnight  or  so,  and  the  inflammation  consequent  on  the  injury 
had  subsided,  he  was  made  to  rise  and  use  a  crutch,  which,  as  ren- 
dering bony  union  impossible,  necessarily  involved  lameness  for 
life.  The  lamentable  result  of  this  practice  of  Sir  Astley,  though 
not  warranted  by  a  careful  view  of  all  the  practical  facts,  but  which, 
he  concluded,  his  experiments  on  dogs  seemed  to  confirm,  can  only 
be  estimated  by  considering  the  number  of  cases  submitted  to  his 
care,  besides  those  of  his  pupils,  who  would  probably,  for  a  time  at 
least,  adopt  the  practice  of  their  distinguished  teacher. 

Mr.  Travers  performed  experiments  on  living  dogs,  causing  a 
variety  of  injuries  to  the  intestines,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  their 
powers  of  repair  under  these  injuries.  His  inquiries  seem  specially 
to  have  been  directed  to  the  treatment  of  strangulated  hernia.  In 
writing  of  this  disease,  Mr.  Travers  says,  that  the  danger  of  the 
operation  in  strangulated  hernia  is  from  peritonitis.  That  is  true; 
but  now  hear  the  remedy  he  proposes.  "  The  great  means  to 
combat  this  is  by  purgatives.  If  there  is  no  peritonitis,"  he  says, 
"  we  give  purgatives  to  prevent  it ;  and  if  there  is  peritonitis,  we 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  53 

give  purgatives  to  cure  it."  It  must  be  admitted  that  this  use  of 
purgatives  has  been  common  in  the  profession;  but  Mr.  Macilwain 
thinks  the  treatment  recommended  by  Mr.  Travers  worthy  of 
special  mention,  because  it  shows  how  much  he  erred,  if  not  in  con- 
sequence of,  certainly  notwithstanding,  his  experiments  on  animals. 
The  probable  explanation  of  the  accession  of  peritonitis  is,  that 
where  mucous  and  serous  membranes  are  associated  in  the  same 
organ,  and  the  irritation  of  the  mucous  surface  is  accompanied  by 
some  obstacle  which  hinders  the  proper  relief  of  the  mucous,  the 
irritation,  or  its  effects,  will  be  transferred  to  the  serous  membrane. 
To  treat  such  a  state  by  purgatives  is  an  evident  mistake,  and  suffi- 
ciently accounts  for  the  great  mortality  under  the  treatment.  Mr. 
Macilwain  adopted  successfully  other  measures  to  check  inflamma- 
tion, and  he  states  that  his  predecessor,  as  surgeon  to  the  London 
Truss  Society — the  elder  Taunton — never  gave  purgatives,  and  had 
operated  upwards  of  fifty  times  with  only  one  or  two  failures. 
\Vhether  Mr.  Travers'  treatment  proceeded  from  what  he  did  in 
his  operations,  or  from  what  he  neglected  to  do,  it  still  illustrates 
the  misleading  character  of  vivisection,  which  failed  to  give  useful 
guidance,  when  specially  questioned  by  men  so  able  and  distinguished 
as  Sir  Astley  Cooper  and  Mr.  Travers. 

The  improvement  in  the  mode  of  the  ligature  of  arteries,  intro- 
duced early  in  this  century  by  Mr.  Jones,  has  been  ascribed  to 
experiments  on  animals.  These  experiments  may  have  confirmed 
his  views,  and  satisfied  others  who  saw  them,  but  they  were  made 
in  support  of  observation  in  the  human  body,  which  a  few  trials  on 
small  vessels,  in  the  operating  theatre,  would  have  established  far 
more  speedily  and  surely.  Yet  this  was  presented  by  one  witness 
to  the  Iloyal  Commission  as  proving  the  necessity  for  experi- 
ments. 

Nor  were  the  arguments  bearing  on  improvements  in  medical 
practice  more  conclusive.  Take  the  experimental  researches  of  Dr. 
Lauder  Brunton  in  attempting  to  discover  the  pathology  of  cholera. 
His  own  account  of  the  investigation,  as  given  in  his  examination 
before  the  Commission,  is  as  follows :  "  It  was  discovered  by  Moreau 
that  by  performing  a  certain  operation  upon  the  intestine  you  could 
get  a  discharge  into  the  intestine.  This  discharge  was  discovered 
by  Kuhne  to  be  exactly  the  same  as  was  found  in  the  intestine 
after  cholera ;  so  I  thought,  if  we  can  find  out  the  exact  part  of  the 


54  VIVISECTION. 

nervous  system  that  is  concerned  in  causing  this  discharge,  we  shall 
probably  be  able  to  find  out  the  part  of  the  nervous  system  con- 
cerned in  cholera ;  'and  having  once  found  that  out,  we  may  be  able 
to  get  a  drug  that  will  act  upon  it,  and  thus  cure  cholera."  There 
were  several  series  of  experiments,  in  the  first  of  which  ninety  cats 
were  used.  In  using  the  knife  chloroform  was  given,  but  the 
animals  were  allowed  to  live  some  time  after  they  recovered  Dr. 
Brunton  told  the  Commissioners  that  "  they  suffered  a  certain 
amount  of  discomfort,  and  possibly,  pain,  indeed,  probably,  pain, 
though  I  do  not  think  very  great  pain ;  I  think  probably  not 
much  more  pain  than  a  man  would  suffer  who  had  perhaps  a  bad 
attack  of  diarrhoea."  It  was  also  said  that  they  were  killed  in  four 
or  five  hours.*  It  is  not  necessary  to  give  the  details  of  these 
experiments,  nor  do  I  wish  to  speak  of  them  here  as  cruel,  as  the 
motive  of  the  operator  may  have  been  humane.  But  what  are  we 
to  think  of  the  logic  that  led  to  the  inquiry,  and  the  wisdom  with 
which  it  was  carried  out?  Moreau  found  he  could  produce  a 
discharge  into  the  intestine  ;  Kiihne  said  this  discharge  was  the 
same  as  that  found  after  cholera;  therefore,  if  we  can  find  the  part 
of  the  nervous  system  concerned  in  causing  this  discharge,  we  may 
find  some  drug  that  will  act  upon  it,  and  thus  cure  cholera  !  The 
prospects  of  a  cholera  specific  from  vivisection  are  not  very  bright. 
Let  us  hope  that  not  many  hundreds  of  cats  or  dogs  may  be  killed, 
in  slow  torture,  before  the  unwisdom  of  the  inquiry  is  recognized. 
The  ninety  cats  of  "the  first  series"  of  experiments  might  have 
sufficed. 

If  vivisection  were  really  the  luminous  and  fruitful  method  of 
research  which  its  advocates  represent  it  to  be,  physiology  must 
long  ere  now  have  been  the  most  advanced  of  the  sciences,  and  none 
of  the  mysteries  of  animal  life  would  remain  obscure.  For  the  last 
fifty  years,  on  the  Continent,  many  men  of  high  rank  in  science, 
learned  and  gifted,  with  well  appointed  laboratories  and  an  unlimited 
supply  of  subjects  for  experiment — encouraged  and  applauded  by 
the  profession,  and  with  no  check  or  restraint  from  law  or  public 
opinion — have  zealously  cultivated  this  field  of  inquiry.  In  recent 
years  many  physiologists  and  biologists  in  England  and  America 

*  This  may  have  been  the  case  in  some  of  the  experiments,  but  in  the  Bar- 
tholomew Hospital  Reports  of  Dr.  Legg,  there  are  records  of  other  experiments 
where  the  animals  lingered  for  weeks. 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  55 

have  entered  into  rivalry  with  those  of  France,  Germany,  and 
Italy.  The  experiments  during  the  past  half  century  may  be  reck- 
oned by  tens  of  thousands,  some  say  even  hundreds  of  thousands. 
Surely  we  may  expect  to  have  obtained  abundant  fruits  from  all 
this  expenditure  of  labor  and  skill,  of  time  and  of  life  !  Surely  we 
may  ask,  what  are  the  results  of  this  long  and  unfettered 
investigation  ? 

Admitting,  as  most  medical  men  do,  the  abstract  right  to  perform 
experiments  on  living  animals  for  the  advancement  of  science,  with 
a  view  to  the  improvement  of  the  healing  art,  the  utility  and  value 
of  this  method  of  research  may  fairly  be  discussed.  If  unquestioned 
and  important  results  could  be  shown,  the  protests  against  vivisec- 
tion from  the  medical  profession  would  be  few.  But  vivisection 
has  been  tried  and  found  wanting.  The  whole  history  of  this 
branch  of  physiological  research — from  the  time  of  Herophilus, 
Erasistratus,  and  the  Egyptian  operators  who  had  living  human 
bodies  to  experiment  upon,  down  to  our  own  clay,  when  Professor 
Ferrier  has  to  be  content  with  the  anthropoid  progenitor  of 
the  human  race,  and  Professor  Rutherford  with  man's  faithful 
dependent,  the  dog,  as  the  subjects  for  examination — the  whole 
history  of  vivisection,  if  it  does  not  convince  men  of  science  of  the 
entire  uselessness  of  these  modes  of  research,  will  at  least  force  them 
to  admit  that  they  are  of  infinitely  less  service  than  it  is  now  the 
custom  to  represent  them.  Take  any  one  of  the  particular  subjects 
that  have  most  occupied  the  attention  of  experimenters — the  func- 
tions of  the  various  parts  of  the  encephalon,  for  example — and  what 
a  mass  of  vague  and  absurdly  discordant  results  appear  as  the  fruit 
of  all  their  researches !  After  the  myriads  of  experiments  by 
Legallois  and  Wilson  Philip,  Amussat  and  Fleurens,  Magendieand 
Bouillaud,  and  by  multitudes  of  others  down  to  our  own  day,  it  is 
surely  fair  to  ask  what  results  cau  be  shown.  What  facts  are  there, 
universally  or  even  generally  admitted,  that  can  be  truly  described 
as  the  fruits  of  vivisection  ?  A  few  conclusions,  indeed,  are  given 
by  experimenters  as  having  been  placed  by  them  beyond  the  reach 
of  controversy ;  but  these  few,  I  maintain,  could  have  been  as  surely 
arrived  at  by  anatomical  and  pathological  research. 

It  is  a  matter  of  regret,  at  the  same  time,  that  most  men  are  not 
satisfied  by  the  inductions  obtained  by  legitimate  means,  and  require 
for  their  conviction  the  visible  demonstrations  which  the  vivisector 


56  VIVISECTION. 

offers  It  was  thus  with  the  great  discovery  of  Sir  Charles  Bell, 
whose  experiments,  he  expressly  states,  were  performed,  not  for  his 
own  conviction,  but  for  the  satisfaction  of  others.  It  is  the  same 
with  many  of  the  vaunted  discoveries  of  vivisectors,  who  gain 
ready  reception  and  loud  praise  for  the  announcement  and  demon- 
stration of  facts  already  established  by  clinical  and  pathological 
research. 

No  opponent  of  vivisection  denies  that  by  means  of  it  many 
facts  in  physiology  can  be  demonstrated,  and  many  phenomena  of 
animal  life  illustrated.  No  one  denies  that,  while  it  is  a  method 
of  research  liable  to  much  fallacy,  and  often  apt  to  mislead  or  even 
to  lead  to  wrong  conclusions,  it  is  also  capable,  on  some  points,  of 
giving  speedy  and  clear  demonstration  of  facts  and  phenomena. 
The  conclusiveness  of  many  experiments  on  living  animals  is  not 
disputed.  For  example,  M.  Magendie  demonstrated  that  cutting 
off  the  eyelids  of  a  rabbit,  and  leaving  bare  the  globe  of  the  eye, 
brought  on  ophthalmia.  MM.  Bouley  and  Colin  starved  a  horse, 
made  an  open  wound  in  the  throat,  and  injected  some  grains  of 
strychnine,  and  the  poor  animal  died  in  "  characteristic  convul- 
sions." M.  Fleurens  removed  with  a  knife  some  layers  of  the 
brain  of  a  bird  ;  "  it  immediately  manifested  a  loss  of  harmony  in 
its  movements,  it  staggered,  and  fell."  M.  Bouillaud,  who  antici- 
pated Professor  Ferrier  in  his  researches  on  the  functions  of  the 
brain,  conducted  numerous  experiments  by  injuring  or  removing 
various  portions  of  the  cerebral  substance  in  different  animals.  In 
one  of  these  he  made  an  opening  in  the  forehead  of  a  young  dog, 
on  each  side,  and  forced  a  red  hot, iron  into  the  anterior  lobes  of 
the  brain.  "  Immediately  afterwards  the  animal,  after  howling 
violently,  lay  down  as  if  to  sleep.  On  urging  it,  it  walked  or  even 
ran,  for  a  considerable  space;  but  it  did  not  know  how  to  avoid 
obstacles  placed  in  its  way,  and  on  encountering  them  groaned,  or 
even  howled  violently.  Deprived  of  the  knowledge  of  external 
objects,  it  no  longer  made  any  movements  either  to  avoid  or 
approach  them.  Yet  it  could  still  perform  such  motions  as  are 
called  instinctive;  it  withdrew  its  feet  when  they  were  pinched, 
and  shook  itself  when  water  was  poured  upon  it.  It  turned  inces- 
santly in  its  cage,  as  if  to  get  out,  and  became  impatient  of  the 
restraint  thus  imposed."  These  instinctive  actions  continued  for 
several  days,   but    no    improvement  appeared  in    its    intellectual 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  57 

power,  and  it  was  killed  because  its  irrepressible  cries  disturbed  the 
neighborhood.  The  anterior  part  of  the  cerebrum  of  another  dog 
was  removed,  and  the  results  watched  for  several  weeks.  The 
details  are  too  revolting  to  give,  but  the  chief  result  noted  is  that 
the  instinctive  actions  were  not  greatly  affected.  It  ate  with 
voracity,  and  when  flung  into  the  river  swam  on  shore  and  returned  to 
the  house.  But  it  acted  "  like  an  uneducated  dog,  whose  intellect  is 
undeveloped.  When  menaced,  it  crouches  as  if  to  implore  mercy, 
but  does  not  in  consequence  obey.  Its  want  of  docility  was  remark- 
able; when  called  it  did  not  come,  but  lay  down  and  wagged  its 
tail  with  an  air  of  stupidity."  Experiments  very  similar  to  those 
of  M.  Bouillaud  have  been  conducted  by  Professor  Ferrier  at  the 
Laboratory  of  the  West  Riding  Lunatic  Asylum,  and  elsewhere. 
The  brain  being  exposed  by  sawing  away  portions  of  the  skull,  the 
results  of  injury  to  various  parts,  by  knife,  concentrated  acids,  and 
by  electric  shocks,  were  observed  and  noted.  Chloroform  was 
usually  administered,  but  the  reports  of  the  experiments  show  that 
the  animals  were  not  continuously  under  its  influence,  and  some- 
times were  only  "  partly  narcotized."  Here,  as  in  the  French 
experiments,  we  read  of  the  animals  exhibiting  signs  of  pain,  fear, 
and  rage.  (i  The  animal  exhibited  signs  of  pain,  screamed,  and 
kicked  out  with  its  left  hind  leg,  at  the  same  time  turning  its  head 
round  and  looking  behind  it  in  an  astonished  manner."  "  When 
the  temporo-sphenoidal  gyri  were  being  exposed  the  animal  bit 
angrily,  and  gnawed  its  own  legs.*  It  did  the  same  generally 
after  irritation  of  the  same  parts."  "  The  excitability  of  the  brain 
was  now  well-nigh  exhausted,  and  entirely  disappeared  four  hours 
after  the  commencement  of  the  experiment,  during  which  time  the 
exploration  was  kept  up  uninterruptedly."  Or  take  one  of  Pro- 
fessor Rutherford's  experiments  upon  "  the  biliary  secretion  of  the 
dog."  "Nine  grains  of  podophylline,  triturated  in  a  mortar  with 
some  bile  as  a  solvent,  were  injected  into  the  duodenum  of  a  dog, 
opened  for  the  purpose.  A  rapid  increase  in  the  bile-secretion 
ensued  ;  but  soon  it  diminished,  and  three  hours  after  the  injection 
it  was  lower  than  it  had  ever  been.     In  this  remarkable  experiment, 

*  Dr.  J.   Crichton  Browne  told   the   Roj'al   Commissioners  that  these  were 
"  merely  mechanical  movements,'"    and  that  the  animals  were  unconscious  of 
pain  (3189).     Dr.  Ferrier  said  he  was  most  careful  to  avoid  causing  pain  (3228). 
I  must  refer  back  to  what  I  have  said  about  anaesthetics,  pp.  17-20. 
C* 


58  VIVISECTION. 

therefore,  the  diminution  of  bile-secretion  after  podophylline  was 
more  marked  than  its  increase ;  indeed,  the  increase  might  have 
possibly  been  owing  to  the  injected  bile,  and  not  to  the  podophyl- 
line. Towards  the  close  of  the  experiment  the  pulse  became  weak, 
but  not  excessively  so.  Autopsy :  The  mucous  membrane  of  the 
stomach  and  whole  length  of  small  intestine  were  intensely  red. 
The  small  intestine  contained  a  large  quantity  of  fluid.  The  large 
intestine  contained  a  considerable  quantity  of  liquid  fecal  matter. 
There  was,  therefore,  abundant  evidence  that  excessive  purgation 
was  imminent."  The  conclusion  was  that  this  large  dose  of  podo- 
phylline, with  a  biliary  solvent,  produced  intense  irritation  of  the 
intestine,  with  signs  of  purgative  power,  but  with  effect  on  the 
liver  not  corresponding  to  the  other  results.  Other  experiments 
showed  that  when  the  intestinal  irritation  is  less  the  biliary  secre- 
tion is  larger.  The  practical  use  of  the  experiments  we  are  not 
now  considering,  but  in  these,  as  in  other  operations  of  the  vivi- 
sectors,  certain  physiological  facts  are  clearly  exhibited.  The  same 
remark  may  be  made  as  to  the  vast  majority  of  experiments  given 
in  the  "  Handbook  of  the  Physiological  Laboratory,"  and  in  other 
manuals  of  vivisection.  Our  contention  is  not  that  such  experi- 
ments are  inconclusive  in  many  instances,  but  that  they  are  useless, 
and  therefore  cruel  and  immoral.  Of  many  of  them  we  affirm  that 
the  facts  ascertained  have  no  bearing  either  on  the  general  principle 
of  physiology,  nor  on  the  practice  of  medicine.  And  of  others, 
which  seem  to  bear  some  relation  to  the  advancement  of  knowledge 
or  art,  we  affirm  that  the  results  could  be  and  are  attained  by 
clinical  and  pathological  observation.  In  the  words  of  Celsus, 
which  may  be  taken  as  the  motto  for  this  essay,  "  Hsec  cognoscere 
prudentem  medicum  non  cEedem  sed  sanitatem  molientem ;  idque 
per  misericordiam  discere,  quod  alii  dira  crudelitate  cognoverint." 
And  again,  "  Ex  lis  quoe  violentia  quseruntur,  alia  non  possunt 
omuino  cognosci,  alia  possunt  etiam  sine  scelere." 

We  are  now  prepared  for  considering  the  question,  Are  experi- 
ments on  living  animals  morally  justifiable?  The  question  cannot 
receive  a  direct  and  categorical  reply,  irrespective  of  motives  and 
of  results.  Man's  dominion  over  the  lower  animals  is  very  large, 
and  it  is  his,  not  only  by  superior  knowledge  and  power,  but  by 
Divine  appointment.     The  dominion  is  not  absolute,  but  limited  by 


IS   IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  59 

the  eternal  obligations  of  justice  and  mercy.  Man  may  use  this 
delegated  dominion  for  his  own  benefit,  but  he  may  not  abuse  it. 
The  gentle  and  genial  poet,  Cowper,  has  well  expressed  the  extent 
and  the  limit  of  this  dominion  : — 

"  The  sum  is  this, — if  man's  convenience,  health, 
Or  safety  interfere,  his  rights  and  claims 
Are  paramount,  and  must  extinguish  theirs  : 
Else  they  are  all,  the  meanest  things  that  are, 
As  free  to  live,  and  to  enjoy  that  life, 
As  God  was  free  to  form  them  at  the  first, 
Who  in  His  sovereign  wisdom  made  them  all." 

For  the  food,  the  clothing,  and  other  uses  of  man,  many  animals 
are  sacrificed.  None  but  Brahmins,  on  religious  grounds,  or  some 
Vegetarians,  on  the  grounds  partly  dietetic  and  partly  ethical, 
object  to  taking  the  life  of  the  lower  animals  for  such  purposes. 
Even  when  life  is  not  taken,  animals  may  be  put  to  pain  and  may 
suffer  injury,  as  in  castration,  to  fit  them  for  the  useful  service  of 
man.  On  the  same  principle,  it  can  fairly  be  argued  that  man  has 
right  to  use  animals  for  researches  that  may  lead  to  the  restoration 
or  the  preservation  of  human  health.  But,  before  we  admit  this, 
we  must  be  satisfied  that  the  results  of  these  researches  are  such  as 
justify  the  resort  to  them,  and  also  that  these  resultscan  be  obtained 
in  no  other  way.  This  is  what  we  have  investigated  in  the  previous 
part  of  our  essay,  and  have  concluded  that,  on  this  plea,  they  are 
not  justifiable. 

There  is  another  way  of  looking  at  the  question  of  vivisection, 
as  tending  to  human  benefit.  If  it  is  right  to  perform  experiments 
on  living  bodies  for  advancement  of  the  healing  art,  why  not  per- 
form them  on  human  bodies?  It  has  been  done  in  past  times,  and 
may  be  proposed  again.  If  condemned  malefactors  were  operated 
upon,  it  would  only  be  anticipating,  by  a  brief  period,  their  hour 
of  death.  Or  the  experiments  might  be  made  on  the  insane  and 
imbecile,  or  persons  defective  in  intellectual  or  moral  faculties,  but 
with  animal  life  in  natural  vigor.  These  subjects  would  be  free 
from  the  objections  arising  out  of  the  different  structure,  constitu- 
tion, and  functions  of  the  lower  animals,  though  still  liable  to  cer- 
tain fallacies  inseparable  from  the  very  method  of  research.  "Vivi- 
sectors  make  light  of  these  alleged  fallacies,  and  think  their  experi- 
ments full  of  light  and  fruit.     Fair  argument   might  be  used  for 


60  VIVISECTION. 

experiments  on  living  men,  with  or  without  anaesthetics,  as  the 
inquiry  might  demand.  It  might  be  argued  that  it  is  expedient  or 
right  that  one  or  a  few  should  suffer  for  the  benefit  of  the  human 
family.  And  if  the  argument,  "  in  majus  bonum,"  were  strengthened 
by  reference  to  corpora  villa,  then  of  malefactors  doomed  to  die, 
and  of  imbeciles,  this  could  be  truly  said. 

Vivisectors  would  hardly  venture,  at  least  not  yet — at  least  in 
England — to  propose  returning  to  the  practice  of  experiments  on 
living  human  bodies.  Public  opinion,  and  medical  opinion,  would 
revolt  from  the  proposal,  if  biologists  and  physiologists  should  pro- 
pose it. 

And  why  ?  Not  because  the  arguments  for  such  experiments  are 
weak,  but  because  the  objections  of  the  moral  sense  are  strong. 
Except  for  self-defence  or  self-preservation,  the  moral  sense  recoils 
from  the  infliction  of  pain  and  injury,  even  when  a  lofty  motive 
may  be  urged.  Why  has  trial  by  torture  been  banished  from  the 
jurisprudence  of  every  civilized  nation?  The  object  of  the  rack, 
and  the  thumbscrew,  and  of  all  the  infernal  apparatus  in  use  in  our 
courts  of  law  at  no  very  remote  period,  was  not  to  cause  pain,  far 
less  to  give  any  satisfaction  or  pleasure.  The  discovery  of  truth 
was  the  object  in  this  method  of  interrogation;  and  with  this  end 
in  view,  the  use  of  torture  was  justified,  and  directed  by  rulers  and 
judges  in  other  respects  humane  as  well  as  just.  In  the  still  more 
horrible  tortures  of  the  Inquisition,  the  object  was  not  avowedly 
that  of  vindictive  punishment;  nor  need  we  assume  that  even  the 
lowest  executioners  and  officers  of  that  dark  tribunal  took  pleasure 
in  the  agonies  of  their  heretic  victims.  The  professed  aim  was 
higher  even  than  in  the  processes  of  ordinary  torture  in  courts  of 
law.  The  advancement  of  Divine  truth  and  of  sacred  science,  or 
theology,  was  the  alleged  design  of  the  Inquisition,  while  the 
spiritual  welfare  and  eternal  salvation  of  men  might  be  also 
attained,  through  subjecting  them  to  short  though  sharp  affliction. 
Yet  examination  by  torture  is  advocated  by  no  one,  because  the 
infliction  of  pain,  even  for  the  advancement  of  truth,  is  not  justi- 
fiable. Anil  does  not  this  apply  with  equal  force  to  experiments 
on  the  lower  animals?  This  is,  indeed,  interrogating  nature  by 
torture  !  You  might  operate  on  human  "subjects  with  no  higher 
intelligence,  and  of  no  higher  moral  condition,  and  certainly  with 
no  more  sensitive  frame,  than  the  poor  brutes  that  are  carried  to 


IS    IT   USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  61 

the  vivisector's  laboratory.  It  is  the  infliction  of  pain  and  injury 
that  cannot  be  justified,  whether  the  victim  be  an  imbecile  human 
idiot,  or  a  docile  intelligent  dog. 

Professor  Newman,  in  a  published  letter,  has  said,  "  Evidently 
the  reason  why  it  is  wicked  to  torture  a  man  is  not  because  he  has 
an  immortal  soul,  but  because  he  has  a  highly  sensitive  body;  and 
so  has  every  vertebrate  animal,  especially  the  warm-blooded.  If 
we  have  no  moral  right  to  torture  a  man,  neither  have  we  a  moral 
right  to  torture  a  dog."  And  again,  "  We  have  to  add  to  our 
morals  a  new  chapter  on  the  Rights  of  Animals.  Men  who  teach 
to  trample  them  down  are  teachers  of  hard-heartedness,  and  are 
real  enemies  of  mankind,  while  they  undertake  to  promote  human 
welfare." 

There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  the  works  of  Jeremy  Bentham, 
applying  the  principle  of  natural  law  to  the  rights  of  animals.  It 
is  quoted  by  Sir  Arthur  Helps  in  his  "Talks  about  Animals  and 
their  Masters."  "  The  day  may  come  when  the  rest  of  the  animal 
creation  may  acquire  those  rights  which  never  could  have  been 
withheld  from  them  but  by  the  hand  of  tyranny.  It  may  come 
one  day  to  be  recognized  that  the  number  of  legs,  the  villosity  of 
the  skin,  or  the  termination  of  the  os  sacrum,  are  reasons  insuffi- 
cient for  abandoning  a  sensitive  being  to  the  caprice  of  a  tormentor. 
What  else  is  it  that  should  trace  the  inseparable  line?  Is  it  the 
faculty  of  reason,  or  perhaps  the  faculty  of  discourse?  But  a  full- 
grown  horse  or  dog  is  beyond  comparison  a  more  rational  as  well 
as  a  more  conversable  animal  than  an  infant  of  a  day,  or  a  week,  or 
even  a  month  old.  But  suppose  the  case  were  otherwise,  what 
could  it  avail  ?  The  question  is  not,  '  Can  they  reason  ? '  nor  '  Can 
they  speak  ?  >  but  '  Can  they  suffer  ? '  " 

If  Justice  requires  that  the  rights  of  animals  should  be  respected, 
and  questions  of  wrong-doing  not  be  confined  to  man's  treatment 
of  his  fellow-men,  much  more  does  Mercy  refuse  to  recognize  the 
arbitrary  limit  of  our  own  species.  "  There  is  implanted  by  Na- 
ture," says  Lord  Bacon,  "  in  the  heart  of  man,  a  noble  and  excel- 
lent affection  of  mercy,  extending  even  to  the  brute  animals  which, 
by  the  Divine  appointment,  are  subjected  to  his  dominion." 

Dr.  Chalmers,  in  his  eloquent  sermon,  says  of  humanity  to  the 
lower  animals: — "It  is  a   virtue  which  oversteps,  as   it  were,  the 


62  VIVISECTION. 

limits  of  a  species,  ancf  which  prompts  a  descending  movement  on 
our  part,  of  righteousness  and  mercy  towards  those  who  have  an 
inferior  place  to  ourselves  in  the  scale  of  creation.  It  is  not  the 
circulation  of  benevolence  within  the  limits  of  one  species.  It  is 
the  transmission  of  it  from  one  species  to  another.  The  first  is  the 
charity  of  a  world.  The  second  is  the  charity  of  a  universe.  Had 
there  been  no  such  charity,  no  descending  current  of  love  and  of  com- 
passion from  species  to  species,  what,  I  ask,  would  have  become  of 
ourselves?  .  .  .  The  distance  upward  between  us  and  that 
mysterious  Being  who  let  Himself  down  from  Heaven's  high  con- 
cave upon  our  lowly  platform,  surpasses  by  infinity  the  distance 
downward  between  us  and  everything  that  breathes.  And  He 
bowed  Himself  thus  far  for  the  purpose  of  an  example,  as  well 
as  for  the  purpose  of  an  expiation,  that  every  Christian  might 
extend  his  compassionate  regards  over  the  whole  of  sentient  and 
suffering  nature."  By  Dr.  Chalmers  the  duty  of  mercy  to  animals 
was  thus  lifted  to  the  highest  level  of  Christian  ethics.  In  the 
same  spirit  are  the  words  of  a  distinguished  man  of  science  and 
Christian  philanthropist,  Dr.  George  Wilson: — "There  is  an 
example  as  well  as  a  lesson  for  us  in  the  Saviour's  compassion 
for  men.  Inasmuch  as  we  partake  with  the  lower  animals  of  bodies 
exquisitely  sensitive  to  pain,  and  often  agonized  by  it,  we  should  be 
slow  to  torture  creatures  who,  though  not  sharers  of  our  joys,  or 
participators  in  our  mental  agonies,  can  equal  us  in  bodily  suf- 
fering. We  stand,  by  Divine  appointment,  between  God  and 
His  irresponsible  subjects,  and  are  as  gods  to  them." 

May  we  not  say  that  vivisection  is  thus  contrary  alike  to  the 
justice  which  regards  the  rights  of  animals,  and  to  the  mercy  which 
has  sympathy  with  the  helpless  and  the  suffering  ?  In  the  principle 
of  the  thing,  man  has  no  more  right  to  perform  painful  or  injurious 
experiments  on  animals  than  on  human  beings. 

I  have  said  that  man's  dominion  over  all  living  creatures  is  not 
absolute,  but  limited  by  the  eternal  obligations  of  justice  and  mercy. 
It  is  also  to  be  regarded  not  merely  as  a  right,  but  as  a  trust.  On 
this  point  I  quote  some  sentences  from  a  remarkable  speech  by  the 
great  Lord  Erskine,  when  he  was  trying  to  induce  the  Government 
of  his  day  to  legislate  for  the  protection  of  animals  from  cruelty  : — 
"  That  the  dominion  of  man  over  the  lower  world  is  a  moral  trust, 
is  a  proposition  which  no   man  living  can  deny,  without   denying 


IS    IT   USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  63 

the  whole  foundation  of  our  duties.  If,  in  the  examination  of  the 
qualities,  powers,  and  instincts  of  animals,  we  could  discover  nothing 
else  but  their  admirable  and  wonderful  construction  for  man's 
assistance ;  if  we  found  no  organs  in  the  animals  for  their  own 
gratification  and  happiness — no  sensibility  to  pain  or  pleasure — no 
senses  analogous,  though  inferior,  to  our  own — no  grateful  sense  of 
kindness,  nor  suffering  from  neglect  or  injury ;  if  we  discovered,  in 
short,  nothing  but  mere  animated  matter,  obviously  and  exclusively 
subservient  to  human  purposes,  it  would  be  difficult  to  maintain 
that  the  dominion  over  them  was  a  trust,  in  any  other  sense,  at  least, 
than  to  make  the  best  use  for  ourselves  of  the  property  which 
Providence  had  given  us.  But  it  calls  for  no  deep  or  extended 
skill  in  natural  history  to  know  that  the  very  reverse  of  this  is  the 
case,  and  that  God  is  the  benevolent  and  impartial  author  of  all 
that  He  has  created.  For  every  animal  which  comes  in  contact 
with  man,  and  whose  powers  and  qualities  and  instincts  are 
obviously  adapted  to  his  use,  Nature  has  taken  care  to  provide,  and 
as  carefully  and  bountifully  as  for  man  himself,  organs  and  feelings 
for  its  own  enjoyment  and  happiness."'  '"  The  animals  are  given 
for  our  use,  but  not  for  our  abuse.  Their  freedom  and  enjoyments, 
when  they  cease  to  be  consistent  with  our  just  dominion  and  enjoy- 
ments, can  be  no  part  of  their  natural  rights ;  but  whilst  they  are 
consistent,  their  rights,  subservient  as  they  are,  ought  to  be  as 
sacred  as  our  own." 

Having  stated  the  ethical  principles  on  which  the  opposition  to 
vivisection  is  founded,  and  shown  that  the  system  is  not  in  harmony 
with  the  moral  government  of  the  world,  there  remains  an  import- 
ant practical  question  as  to  the  moral  effects  of  this  mode  of 
research.  Is  not  the  tendency  to  harden  the  operator,  and  blunt 
his  moral  sense?  And,  if  so,  is  not  the  system  injurious,  not  only 
to  those  engaged  in  it,  but  to  the  tone  and  character  of  the  medical 
profession,  and  to  society  at  large  ? 

In  examining  the  question,  in  its  moral  and  social-  bearings,  it  is 
of  no  avail  to  say  that  some  vivisectionists  are  good  and  exemp- 
lary, and  even  tender-hearted  men.  This  is  true;  and  it  may  be 
also  admitted  that,  in  the  performance  of  experiments,  they  them- 
selves are  subjected  to  much  mental  distress.  Nothing  but  a  high 
sense  of  duty,  and  an  earnest  desire  to  obtain  useful  results,  could 
induce  the  medical  men  of  culture  and  ordinary  feeling  to  engage 


64  VIVISECTION. 

in  some  of  the  researches,  the  mere  descriptions  of  which  cannot  be 
read  without  pain  and  horror.  Professor  Rolleston,  of  Oxford,  in 
giving  his  evidence  before  the  Royal  Commission,  bore  testimony, 
from  personal  intercourse  and  friendship,  as  to  the  amiable  char- 
acter of  some  experimenters.  One  of  these  was  a  joint  author  of 
the  Handbook  for  the  Physiological  Laboratory.  A  very  terrible 
experiment  was  quoted  in  that  book ;  and  being  asked  how  he 
accounted  for  any  humane  person  inserting  it  as  an  illustration, 
Professor  Rolleston  said  that  Dr.  Foster  had  never  shown  it  (the 
experiment  on  recurrent  sensibility),  and  never  seen  it  himself. 
Asked:  "But  surely  it  is  put  here,  in  a  Handbook,  in  a  mode 
which  would  encourage  the  trying  of  that  experiment?"  The 
reply  was:  "Obviously;  but  I  am  speaking  in  vindication  of 
the  character  of  my  friend,  but  not  at  all  in  vindication  of 
the  book."  Asked :  "  Then  I  understood  that  your  opinion 
about  the  book  is,  that  it  is  a  dangerous  book  to  society,  and 
that  it  has  warranted,  to  some  extent,  the  feeling  of  anxiety  in 
the  public  which  its  publication  has  created?"  "I  am  sorry," 
replied  Professor  Rolleston,  "  to  have  to  say  that  I  do  think 
that  is  so." 

Others  have  shown  no  reserve  at  all  in  defence  of  everything 
contained  in  it,  and  have  exhibited  a  defiance  of  public  opinion  too 
plainly  arising  from  callous  indifference.  That  they  should  be  sup- 
ported by  men  of  more  gentle  and  refined  nature  only  proves  the 
more  strikingly  that  the  tendency  of  vivisection  is  to  blunt  the 
moral  sense.  It  is  a  law  in  ethics,  that  the  strength  of  any  motive 
is  increased  or  diminished,  according  to  the  habitual  exercise  of  the 
mental  emotion  brought  into  play.  Sympathy  for  distress  and 
aversion  to  inflict  pain  may  be  naturally  strong  in  the  heart  of  a 
biologist  or  physician,  but  may  be  gradually  overpowered  and  sup- 
pressed by  the  habitual  exercise  of  other  motives,  such  as  zeal  for 
science  or  ambition  of  scientific  fame.  Every  time  these  passions 
prevail  an  increased  purchase  is  gained  for  their  future  influence, 
and  the  heart  is  hardened  as  they  encroach  on  the  rightful  domain 
of  sympathy  and  compassion  for  poor  suffering  animals.  In  other 
persons,  the  better  feeling  of  possibly  rendering  good  to  men  by  im- 
provements in  medicine,  represses  the  immediate  emotion  of  pity ; 
and  even  humane  physicians  advocate  the  most  fearful  proceedings 
of  vivisection.     Such  is  the  natural  process  by  which  the  feelings 


IS    IT   USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  65 

are  blunted  and  the  moral  sense  restrained  from  protesting  against 
the  cruelty  of  vivisection. 

While  thus  explaining  the  personal  blunting  of  feeling  towards 
animals,  in  some  who  may  be  amiable  and  kind  to  their  fellow- 
men,  no  reserve  should  be  maintained  in  declaring  the  evil  ten- 
dency of  the  system.  To  those  who  possess  the  large  Blue  Book, 
with  the  reports  and  evidence  of  the  Royal  Commission,  or  who 
have,  in  other  ways,  specially  become  acquainted  with  the  history 
of  vivisection,  it  would  be  needless  to  offer  proofs  on  this  matter. 
But  a  large  proportion  of  the  medical  men  of  the  day  know  little  of 
what  has  passed  in  regard  to  the  teaching  of  physiology  in  recent 
years.  This  is  a  new  feature  in  English  medical  education.  There 
were  no  physiological  laboratories,  not  even  class  demonstrations,  in 
our  student  days,  at  Guy's  or  St.  Bartholomew's ;  nor  at  the  Uni- 
versities of  Edinburgh  or  London  was  the  practice  of  vivisection 
recognized.  The  altered  attitude  of  the  medical  press,  and  of  the 
official  representatives  of  the  profession,  already  show  signs  of 
deterioration  of  moral  and  social  tone,  and  there  is  need  for  plainly 
showing  the  influences  now  at  work,  and  leavening  the  character 
of  the  rising  race  of  medical  practitioners. 

Dr.  George  Hoggan  published  in  Fraser's  Magazine,  for  April, 
1875,  a  statement  of  what  he  had  witnessed  as  assistant  in  the  labor- 
atory of  one  of  the  most  eminent  physiologists  of  France.  The 
name  is  courteously  withheld,  but  it  is  very  well  understood  to  what 
place  the  reference  is  made.  "  In  that  laboratory,"  says  Dr.  Hoggan, 
"  we  sacrificed  daily  from  one  to  three  dogs,  besides  rabbits  and 
other  animals,  and  after  four  months'  experience,  I  am  of  opinion 
that  not  one  of  these  experiments  was  justified  or  necessary.  The 
idea  of  the  good  of  humanity  was  simply  out  of  the  question,  and 
would  have  been  laughed  at,  the  great  aim  being  to  keep  up  with, 
or  get  ahead  of,  one's  contemporaries  in  science,  even  at  the  price  of 
an  incalculable  amount  of  torture  needlessly  and  iniquitously 
inflicted  on  the  poor  animals. 

"  During  three  campaigns  I  have  witnessed  many  harsh  sights, 
but  I  think  the  saddest  sight  I  ever  witnessed  was  when  the  dogs 
were  brought  up  from  the  cellar  to  the  laboratory  for  sacrifice. 
Instead  of  appearing  pleased  with  the  change  from  darkness  to 
light,  they  seemed  seized  with  horror  as  soon  as  they  smelt  the  air 
of  the  place,  divining,  apparently,  their  approaching  fate.     They 


6(3  VIVISECTION. 

would  make  friendly  advances  to  each  of  the  three  or  four  persons 
present,  and  as  far  as  eyes,  ears  and  tail  could  make  a  mute  appeal 
for  mercy  eloquent,  they  tried  it  in  vain.  Even  when  roughly 
graspe:l  and  thrown  down  on  the  torture  trough  a  low  complaining 
whine  at  such  treatment  would  be  all  the  protest  made,  and  they 
would  continue  to  lick  the  hand  which  bound  them  till  their  mouths 
were  fixed  in  the  gag,  and  they  could  only  flap  their  tail  in  the 
trough  as  their  last  means  of  exciting  compassion.  Often  when 
convulsed  by  the  pain  of  their  torture  this  would  be  renewed,  and 
they  would  be  soothed  instantly  on  receiving  a  few  gentle  pats.  It 
was  all  the  aid  or  comfort  I  could  give  them,  and  I  gave  it  often. 
They  seemed  to  take  it  as  an  earnest  of  fellow-feeling,  that  would 
cause  their  torture  to  come  to  an  end — an  end  only  brought  by 
death. 

"  Were  the  feelings  of  experimental  physiologists  not  blunted, 
they  could  not  long  continue  the  practice  of  vivisection.  They  are 
always  ready  to  repudiate  any  implied  want  of  tender  feeling,  but 
I  must  say  that  they  seldom  show  much  pity;  on  the  contrary,  in 
practice  they  frequently  show  the  reverse.  Hundreds  of  times  I 
have  seen,  when  an  animal  writhed  with  pain,  and  thereby  deranged 
the  tissues,  during  a  delicate  dissection,  instead  of  being  soothed  it 
would  receive  a  slap  and  an  angry  order  to  be  quiet  and  to  behave 
itself.  At  other  times,  when  an  animal  had  endured  great  pain 
for  hours  without  struggling  or  giving  more  than  an  occasional  low 
whine,  instead  of  letting  the  poor  mangled  wretch  loose  to  crawl 
painfully  about  the  place  in  reserve  for  another  day's  torture,  it 
would  receive  pity  so  far  that  it  would  be  said  to  have  behaved 
well  enough  to  merit  death  ;  and,  as  a  reward,  would  be  killed  at 
once  by  breaking  up  the  medulla  with  a  needle,  or  '  pithing/  as 
this  operation  is  called.  I  have  heard  the  Professor  say,  when  one 
side  of  an  animal  had  been  so  mangled,  and  the  tissues  so  obscured 
by  clotted  blood  that  it  was  difficult  to  find  the  part  searched  for, 
'  Why  don't  you  begin  on  the  other  side  ? '  or, '  Why  don't  you 
take  another  dog  ?  '     '  What  is  the  use  of  being  so  economical  ? ' 

"  One  of  the  most  revolting  features  in  the  laboratory  was  the 
custom  of  giving  an  animal  on  which  the  professor  had  completed 
his  experiment,  and  which  had  still  some  life  left,  to  the  assistants, 
to  practice  the  finding  of  arteries,  nerves,  etc.,  in  the  living  animal, 
or  for  performing  what  are  called  fundamental   experiments  upon 


IS    IT    USEFUL   OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  67 

it — in  other  words,  repeating  those  which  are  recommended  in  the 
laboratory  handbooks." 

Such  was  Dr.  Hoggan's  experience  in  the  laboratory  of  one 
who  was  in  the  first  rank  in  Paris  as  a  physiologist.  His  words 
are  worth  repeating.  "I  am  of  opinion  that  not  one  of  those 
experiments  on  animals  was  justified  or  necessary."  The  wonder 
is  how  he  could  have  assisted  at  such  scenes  of  torture,  as  he  calls 
them,  for  so  long  a  period.  It  is  well  that  he  has  now  made  so 
clear  a  statement  and  generous  a  confession.  His  evidence  may 
serve  as  a  warning  as  to  what  is  possible  in  England,  if  this  system 
of  research  spreads  among  us.  Another  English  surgeon,  visiting 
a  French  laboratory,  describes  the  conduct  of  the  students,  in  mim- 
icking the  cries  and  moans  of  the  tortured  animals  ill  derision,  as 
so  revolting  that  he  quitted  the  place  in  disgust.  I  myself  wit- 
nessed, long  ago,  this  "  tiger-monkey  "  spirit  in  Magendie's  class- 
room. Along  with  the  late  Edward  Forbes,  and  two  or  three 
other  students  from  Edinburgh,  I  tried  to  learn  something  from 
Magendie,  but  we  were  driven  from  the  place  in  disgust,  shocked, 
not  so  much  by  the  coarse  cruelty  of  the  Professor  as  by  the  repul- 
sive heartlessness  of  the  spectators.  English  students  were  not  in 
those  days  accustomed  to  such  scenes  of  horror.  The  foreign 
teachers  know  the  greater  sensitiveness  of  our  countrymen,  although 
the  honorable  distinction  seems  to  be  passing  away.  An  English 
student  having  quitted  a  well-known  German  laboratory,  unable 
to  bear  its  horrors,  the  professor  said  that  "  he  never  found 
Englishmen  who  would  stop  with  him,  and  he  supposed  (with  a 
sneer)  that  they  thought  God  would  make  them  suifer  the  same  as 
the  animals." 

The  experience  of  the  last  few  years  sadly  proves  how  soon  and 
how  effectually  the  tone  which  has  distinguished  English  from 
Continental  schools  has  been  lowered.  Ten  or  twelve  years  ago 
Mr.  Fleming,  author  of  the  first  prize  essay  published  by  the 
Society  for  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  after  describing  the 
fearful  cruelties  daily  witnessed  at  the  College  of  Al fort,  the  chief 
veterinary  training  school  in  France,  could  say  that,  "To  the 
honor  of  the  veterinary  schools  of  England,  vivisection  has  never 
been  allowed  in  them;"  and  Mr.  Fleming,  with  just  pride,  adds, 
"  No  one  will  deny  that  they  are  as  well  qualified  to  undertake  the 
management  of  difficult  operations  as  the   vivisectionists."     The 


68  VIVISECTION. 

details  of  the  practices  at  A 1  fort,  and  also  at  Lyons,  as  given  by 
Mr.  Fleming,  form  a  most  ghastly  record.  The  scandal  caused  by 
these  atrocities  led  to  an  appeal  being  made  to  the  late  Emperor  of 
the  French,  who  referred  the  matter  to  a  Scientific  Commission. 
The  practices  are,  however,  continued  to  the  present  day,  and,  we 
grieve  to  say,  have  been  introduced  into  this  country.  Mr.  James 
Mills  has  put  on  record  a  fearful  account  of  cruelties  which  he  wit- 
nessed, and  in  which  he  took  part  when  attending  the  Edinburgh 
Veterinary  College,  but  of  his  share  in  which  he  is  now  heartily 
ashamed.  Both  veterinary  and  medical  students  joined  in  the 
experiments  which  Mr.  Mills  describes  He  says,  "  There  was  no 
other  motive  than  idle  curiosity,  and  heedless,  reckless  love  of 
experimentation.  To  observe  the  heart's  action  a  cat  was  fastened 
down  on  its  back.  An  incision  through  the  skin  of  the  animal's 
chest  extended  from  the  neck  to  the  belly.  The  skin  was  then 
laid  back  by  hooks,  to  enable  the  operator  to  cut  through  the  cartil- 
age of  the  sternum,  and  to  draw  his  knife  across  the  ribs  for  the 
purpose  of  nicking  them.  The  ribs  were  then  snapped,  and  the 
fractured  parts  turned  back  and  secured  by  hooks.  No  anaesthetic 
was  used.  On  another  occasion  a  horse  was  bought  for  the  purpose 
of  dissection.  During  a  whole  week  this  animal  was  subjected  to 
various  operations,  such  as  tenotomy,  neurotomy,  etc.,  again  with- 
out anaesthetics.  In  other  cases  the  animals  received  "  brutal 
usage."  Mr.  Mills  exonerates  the  professors  from  participation  in 
the  experiments,  most  of  which  were  performed  in  the  students' 
lodgings ;  but  the  Principal  must  have  known  of  the  horse  being 
experimented  on  within  the  walls  of  the  College.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Dr.  Haughton,  of  Dublin,  in  his  evidence  before  the 
Commission,  said  :  "  I  would  shrink  with  horror  from  accustoming 
large  classes  of  young  men  to  the  sight  of  animals  under  vivisection. 
I  believe  that  many  of  them  would  become  cruel  and  hardened,  and 
would  go  away  and  repeat  those  experiments  recklessly.  Science 
would  gain  nothing,  and  the  world  would  have  let  loose  upon  it  a  set 
of  devils." 

Dr.  Acland,  of  Oxford,  said,  in  his  evidence,  that  many  persons 
are  now  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  vivisection  in  this  country,  not 
for  a  humane  purpose,  but  for  acquiring  abstract  knowledge.  This 
desire  of  mere  discovery  has  a  dangerous  and  mischievous  tendency. 
"  So  many  persons  have  got  to  deal  with  those  wonderful  and  beau- 


IS    IT    USEFUL    OR   JUSTIFIABLE?  69 

ti ful  organisms  just  as  they  deal  with  physical  bodies  that  have  no 
feeling  and  consciousness."  Dr.  Acland  said  this  could  not  be  done 
without  being  so  hurtful  to  the  moral  sense  of  England  that  it 
would  not  be  endured  if  carried  to  the  same  extent  as  abroad. 
Surely  an  effort  must  be  made  to  prevent  our  English  schools  of 
medicine  being-  degraded  to  the  Continental  level. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  evidence  of  Dr.  Klein,  Director  of 
the  Brown  Institution,  and  Lecturer  on  Histology  at  the  Medical 
School  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital.  He  certainly  made  some 
candid  and  strange  admissions  as  to  the  cruelties  alleged  to  have 
taken  place  in  his  researches.  He  said  that  a  physiologist  could 
not  be  expected  to  devote  time  and  thought  to  inquiring  what  the 
animal  feels  while  he  is  doing  the  experiment.  He  "uses  anaesthe- 
tics only  for  convenience  sake,,  in  dogs  and  cats,  and  for  no  other 
animals  as  a  general  rule."  Dr.  Klein  must  not  be  too  severely 
judged.  His  training  has  been  different  from  that  of  most  English- 
men ;  and  he  never  knew  in  Vienna,  where  he  formerly  practiced, 
any  of  the  hostility  to  vivisection  which  is  common  in  this  country 
on  the  part  of  the  general  public,  though  not  of  physiologists. 

But  Dr.  Klein's  statements  lead  us  to  view  with  dark  foreboding 
the  avowed  opinions  of  some  of  our  leading  professors  and  public 
teachers,  as  when  Dr.  Burdon-Sanderson  says  he  "wishes  to  see 
the  type  of  education  here  more  like  the  type  of  education  in  Ger- 
many." Dr.  Gamgee,  of  Manchester,  also  praises  highly  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Dr.  Ludwig,  of  Leipsic,  who  has  been  the  teacher  of 
nearly  all  the  physiologists  of  Europe,  and  has  indoctrinated  nearly 
the  whole  of  them  in  the  methods  of  physiological  inquiry.  These 
expressions  of  opinion,  from  prominent  and  representative  men,  and 
still  more,  the  reported  proceedings  of  the  General  Medical  Council 
and  of  the  British  Medical  Association,  in  reference  to  legislation 
on  the  subject,  give  rise  to  sad  forebodings  for  the  future.  The 
new  generations  of  medical  men,  trained  under  such  influences, 
although  few  of  them  may  have  been  personally  engaged  in  experi- 
ments, must  become  degraded  in  moral  and  social  tone,  and  the 
whole  status  of  the  profession  will  thereby  be  affected. 

Foolish  things  may  have  been  said,  and  extreme  views  held  by 
those  who  advocate  the  total  abolition,  or  suppression  by  law,  of 
experiments  on  living  animals.  Even  those  who  most  wish  this 
can  scarcely  hope  to  see  their  wish  realized.     But  I  do  not  despair 


70  VIVISECTION. 

to  see  such  a  change  in  the  general  opinion  of  the  profession  regard- 
ing such  experiments  as  will  render  them  of  rare  and  exceptional 
occurrence.  Apart  from  any  ignorant  clamor  there  is  a  strong 
public  feeling  as  to  the  cruelties  of  vivisection.  Sir  Arthur  Helps 
gave  expression  to  the  feeling  prevalent  among  men  of  culture  in  all 
professions,  when  he  said  that  "  any  man  known  to  have  practiced 
needless  cruelties  on  animals  should  be  placed  under  a  social  ban." 
It  is  very  certain  that  the  status  of  the  profession  may  be  lowered 
by  being  associated  in  the  public  mind  with  vivisection.  There 
are  already  signs  of  this,  and  many  medical  men  would  rejoice  to 
see  their  profession  delivered  from  the  opprobrium  that  has  come 
upon  it  in  consequence  of  this  practice.  This  can  be  done  only  by 
showing  that  sound  science  is  on  the  side  of  humanity  on  this 
question.  So  far  from  vivisection  having  aided  in  the  advancement 
of  the  healing  art,  many  testimonies  confirm  the  saying  of  Sir 
Charles  Bell,  that  "  it  has  done  more  to  perpetuate  error  than  to  add 
to  sound  knowledge."  At  all  events  the  advantages  of  such  experi- 
ments have  been  vastly  overrated,  and  their  disadvantages  not  duly 
considered.  The  question  is  not  whether  any  results  are  obtained 
from  this  source,  but  whether  they  are  worth  the  price  paid  for 
them.  That  knowledge  is  dear  which  is  purchased  at  the  expense 
of  humanity.  These  experiments  involve  much  suffering  and 
wrong,  afford  very  meagre  and  doubtful  results  for  practical  use, 
and  withdraw  attention  from  sounder  methods  of  research.  They 
are  neither  scientifically  valuable,  nor  morally  justifiable. 


